-IT was the morning of the day on which I was slated to pop down to my Aunt Agatha's place at Woollam Chersey in the county of Herts for a visit of three solid weeks; and, as I seated myself at the breakfast table, I don't mind confess-ing that the heart was singularly heavy. We Woosters are men of iron, but beneath my intrepid exterior at that moment there lurked a nameless dread;

· 'Jeeves,' I said, 'I am not the old merry self this morning.'

·'Indeed, sir?'

'No, Jeeves. Far from it. Far from the old merry self' 'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'

He uncovered the fragrant eggs and b., and I pronged a moody forkful.

'Why - this is what I keep asking myself, Jeeves, - why

has my Aunt Agatha invited me to her country seat?' 'I could not say, sir.'

· 'Not because she is fond of me..' No, sir;'

'It is a well established fact that I give her a pain in the neck. How it happens I cannot say, but every time our paths cross, so to speak, it seems to be a mere matter of time be-fore I perpetrate some ghastly floater and have her hopping. after me with her hatchet. The result being that she regards me as a worm and an outcast. Am I right or wrong, Jeeves?'

'Perfectly correct, sir.'

'And yet now she has absolutely insisted on my scratching all previous> engagements. and buzzing down to Woollam Chersey. She must have some sinister reason of which we know nothing. Can you blame me, Jeeves, if the heart is heavy?'

'No, Sir. Excuse me, sir, I fancy I heard the front-door bell.'

page 9 Jeeves and Impending Doom

He shimmered out, and I took another listless stab at the e. and bacon.

'A telegram, sir,' said Jeeves, re-entering the presence.

'Open it, Jeeves, and read contents. who is it from?'

'It is unsigned, sir.

'You mean there S no name at the end of it?'

'That is precisely what I was endeavouring to convey, sir?

'Let's have a look.'

I scanned the thing. It was a rummy communication. Rummy. No other word.  As follows:

               Remember when you come here absolutely vital meet perfect strangers,

We Woosters are not very strong in the head, particularly at breakfast time; and I was conscious of a dull ache between the eyebrows.

'What does it mean, Jeeves?'

'I could not say. sir.'

'It says "come here." Where's here?'

'You will notice that the message was handed in at Wool-lam Chersey. sir.'

'You're absolutely right. At Woollam, as you very cleverly spotted, Chersey. This tells us something, Jeeves.'

'What, sir?'

'I don't know. It couldn't be from my Aunt Agatha, do you think?'

'Hardly. sir.'

'No; you're right again. Then all we can say is that some person unknown, resident at Woollam Chersey, considers it absolutely vital for me to meet perfect strangers, Jeeves?'

'I could not say, sir.'

'And yet, looking at it from another angle, why shouldn't I?'

· 'Precisely, sir.'

'Then what it comes to is that the thing is a mystery which time alone can solve. We must wait and see, Jeeves.'

'The very expression I was about to employ, sir.'

page 10  Jeeves and the Impending Doom

I hit Woollam Chersey at about four o'clock, and found Aunt Agatha in her lair, writing letters. And, from what I know of her, probably offensive letters, with nasty postscripts. She regarded me with not a fearful lot of joy.

'Oh, there you are, Bertie.'

'Yes, here I am.'

There's a smut on your nose.

I plied the handkerchief.

'I am glad you have arrived so early. I want to have a word with you before you meet Mr. Filmer.'

'Mr. Filmer, the Cabinet Minister. He is staying in the house. Surely even you must have heard of Mr. Filmer?'

'Oh, rather,' I said, though as a matter of fact the bird was completely unknown to me. What with one thing and another, I'm not frightfully up in the personnel of the poli-tical world.

'I particularly wish you to make a good impression oh Mr. Filmer.'

Right-ho.'

'Don't speak in that casual way, as if you supposed that it was perfectly natural that you would make a good impres-sion upon him. Mr. Filmer is a serious-minded man of high character and purpose, and you are just the type of vapid and frivolous wastrel against which he is most likely to be prejudiced.'

Hard words, of course, from one's own flesh and blood, but well in keeping with past form.

'You will endeavour, therefore, while you are here not to display yourself in the rôle of a vapid and frivolous wastrel. In the first place, you will give up smoking during your visit.'

'Oh, I say!'

'Mr Filmer is president of the Anti-Tobacco League Nor will you drink alcoholic stimulants.'

'Oh, dash it!'

'And you will kindly exclude from your conversation all that is suggestive of the bar, the billiards-room, and the stage-

door. Mr Filmer will judge you largely by your conversa-tion.

I rose to a point of order.

'Yes, but why have I got to make an impression on this -on Mr Filmer?'

'Because,' said the old relative, giving me the eye, 'I par-ticularly wish it.'

Not, perhaps, a notably snappy come-back as comebacks go; but it was enough to show me that that was more or less that; and I beetled out with an aching heart..

I headed for the garden, and I'm dashed if the first person I saw wasn't young Bingo Little.

Bingo Little and I have been pals practically from birth. Born in the same village within a couple of days of one another, we went through kindergarten, Eton, and Oxford together; and, grown to riper years we have enjoyed in the old metrop full many a first-class binge in each other's society. If there was one fellow in the world, I felt, who could alleviate the horrors of this blighted visit of mine; that bloke was young Bingo Little.

But how he came to be there was more than I could under-stand. Some time before, you see, he had married the cele-brated authoress, Rosie M. Banks; and the last I had seen of him he had been on the point. of accompanying her to America on a lecture tour. I distinctly remembered him cursing rather freely because the trip would mean his missing Ascot.

Still, rummy as it might seem, here he was. And aching for the sight of a friendly face, I gave tongue like a bloodhound.

'Bingo!'

He spun round; and, by Jove, his face wasn't friendly after all. It was what they call contorted. He waved his arms at me like a semaphore.

· ''Sh!' he hissed. 'Would you ruin me?'

· 'Didn't you get my telegram?'

'Was that your telegram?'

page 12  Jeeves and the Impending Doom

'Of course it was my telegram.'

'Then why didn't you sign it?'

'I did sign it.'

'No, you didn't. I couldn't make out what it was all about.' 'Well, you got my letter.'

'What letter?'

'My letter?

'I didn't get any letter.'

'Then I must have forgotten to post it. It was to tell you that I was down here tutoring your Cousin Thomas, and that it was essential that, when we met, you should treat me as a perfect stranger.'

'But why?'

'Because, if your aunt supposed that I was a pal of yours, she would naturally sack me on the spot.'

'Why?'

Bingo raised his eyebrows.

'Why? Be reasonable, Bertie. If you were your aunt, and you knew the sort of chap you were, would you let a fellow you knew to be your best pal tutor your son?'

This made the old head swim a bit, but I got his meaning after a while, and I had to admit that there was much rugged good sense in what he said. Still, he hadn't explained what you might call the nub or gist of the mystery.

'I thought you were in America,' I said

'Well, I'm not'

'Why not?'

'Never mind why not. I'm not'

'But why have you taken a tutoring job?'

'Never mind why. I have my reasons. And I want you to get it into your head, Bertie - to get it right through the con-crete - that you and I must not be seen hobnobbing. Your foul cousin was caught smoking in the shrubbery the day before yesterday, and that has made my position pretty tottery, because your aunt said- that, if I had exercised an adequate surveillance over him, it couldn't have happened. if, after that, she finds out I'm a friend of yours, nothing can…

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