"Пэлем Вудхауз. Jeeves in the offing (Предложения Дживса, engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

'Weak, very weak.'
'Besides, I needed him in my business. He's going to present the
prizes at Market Snodsbury Grammar School. We've been caught short as
usual, and somebody has got to make a speech on ideals and the great
world outside to those blasted boys, so he fits in nicely. I believe
he's a very fine speaker. His only trouble is that he's stymied unless
he has his speech with him and can read it. Calls it referring to his
notes. Phyllis told me that. She types the stuff for him.'
'A thoroughly low trick,' I said severely. 'Even I, who have never
soared above the Yeoman's Wedding Song at a village concert, wouldn't
have the crust to face my public unless I'd taken the trouble to
memorize the words, though actually with the Yeoman's Wedding Song it
is possible to get by quite comfortably by keeping singing "Ding dong,
ding dong, ding dong, I hurry along". In short...'
I would have spoken further, but at this point, after urging me to
put a sock in it, and giving me a kindly word of warning not to step on
any banana skins, she rang off.



2

I came away from the telephone on what practically amounted to
leaden feet. Here, I was feeling, was a nice bit of box fruit. Bobbie
Wickham, with her tendency to stir things up and with each new day to
discover some new way of staggering civilization, would by herself have
been bad enough. Add Aubrey Upjohn, and the mixture became too rich. I
don't know if Kipper, when I rejoined him, noticed that my brow was
sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought, as I have heard Jeeves put
it. Probably not, for he was tucking into toast and marmalade at the
moment, but it was. As had happened so often in the past, I was
conscious of an impending doom. Exactly what form this would take I was
of course unable to say - it might be one thing or it might be another
- but a voice seemed to whisper to me that somehow at some not distant
date Bertram was slated to get it in the gizzard.
'That was Aunt Dahlia, Kipper,' I said.
'Bless her jolly old heart,' he responded. 'One of the very best,
and you can quote me as saying so. I shall never forget those happy
days at Brinkley, and shall be glad at any time that suits her to cadge
another invitation. Is she up in London?'
'Till this afternoon.'
'We fill her to the brim with rich foods, of course?'
'No, she's got a lunch date. She's browsing with Sir Roderick
Glossop, the loony-doctor. You don't know him, do you?'
'Only from hearing you speak of him. A tough egg, I gather.'
'One of the toughest.'
'He was the chap, wasn't he, who found the twenty-four cats in your
bedroom?'
'Twenty-three,' I corrected. I like to get things right. 'They were
not my cats. They had been deposited there by my Cousins Claude and