Expecting Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse Read Free Book Online Page A

than it settled down over my ears like a kind of extinguisher.
    â€œI say! This isn’t my hat!”
    â€œIt is
my
hat!” said Sir Roderick in about the coldest, nastiest voice I’d ever heard. “The hat which was stolen from me this morning as I drove in my car.”
    â€œBut —”
    I suppose Napoleon or somebody like that would have been equal to the situation, but I’m bound to say it was too much for me. I just stood there goggling in a sort of coma, while the old boy lifted the hat off me and turned to Jeeves.
    â€œI should be glad, my man,” he said, “if you would accompany me a few yards down the street. I wish to ask you some questions.”
    â€œVery good, sir.”
    â€œHere, but, I say —!” I began, but he left me standing. He stalked out, followed by Jeeves. And at that moment the row in the bedroom started again, louder than ever.
    I was about fed up with the whole thing. I mean, cats in your bedroom — a bit thick, what? I didn’t know how the dickens they had got in, but I was jolly well resolved that they weren’t going to stay picnicking there any longer. I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mob-scene was the head of a whack ing big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.
    There was something about the thing’s expression that absolutely chilled me, and I withdrew on tip-toe and shut the door. And, as I did so, I bumped into someone.
    â€œOh, sorry!” he said.
    I spun round. It was the pink-faced chappie, Lord Something or other, the fellow I had met with Claude and Eustace.
    â€œI say,” he said apologetically, “awfully sorry to bother you, but those weren’t my cats I met just now legging it downstairs, were they? They looked like my cats.”
    â€œThey came out of my bedroom.”
    â€œThen they
were
my cats!” he said sadly. “Oh, dash it!”
    â€œDid you put cats in my bedroom?”
    â€œYour man, what’s-his-name, did. He rather decently said I could keep them there till my train went. I’d just come to fetch them. And now they’ve gone! Oh, well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. I’ll take the hat and the fish, anyway.”
    I was beginning to dislike this chappie.
    â€œDid you put that bally fish there, too?”
    â€œNo, that was Eustace’s. The hat was Claude’s.”
    I sank limply into a chair.
    â€œI say, you couldn’t explain this, could you?” I said. The chappie gazed at me in mild surprise.
    â€œWhy, don’t you know all about it? I say!” He blushed profusely. “Why, if you don’t know about it, I shouldn’t wonder if the whole thing didn’t seem rummy to you.”
    â€œRummy is the word.”
    â€œIt was for The Seekers, you know.”
    â€œThe Seekers?”
    â€œRather a blood club, you know, up at Oxford, which your cousins and I are rather keen on getting into. You have to pinch something, you know, to get elected. Some sort of a souvenir, you know. A policeman’s helmet, you know, or a door-knocker or something, you know. The room’s decorated with the things at the annual dinner, and everybody makes speeches and all that sort of thing. Rather jolly! Well, we wanted rather to make a sort of special effort and do the thing in style, if you understand, so we came up to London to see if we couldn’t pick up something here that would be a bit out of the ordinary. And we had the most amazing luck right from the start. Your cousin Claude managed to collect a quite decent top-hat out of a passing car, and your cousin Eustace got away with a really goodish salmon or something from Harrods, and