As I sat there draining the bitter cup, there were noises off stage and my meditations were interrupted by the return of the old ancestor. Well, when I say return, she came whizzing in but didn't stop, just whizzed through, and I saw, for I am pretty quick at noticing things, that she was upset about something. Reasoning closely, I deduced that her interview with L. P. Runkle must have gone awry or, as I much prefer to put it, agley.

And so it proved when she bobbed up again some little time later. Her first observation was that L. P. Runkle was an illegitimate offspring to end all illegitimate offsprings, and I hastened to commiserate with her. I could have done with a bit of commiseration myself, but Women and Children First is always the Wooster slogan.

'No luck?' I said.

'None.'

'Wouldn't part?'

'Not a penny.'

'You mentioned that without his co-operation Tuppy and Angela's wedding bells would not ring out?'

'Of course I did. And he said it was a great mistake for young people to marry before they knew their own minds.'

'You could have pointed out that Tuppy and Angela have been engaged for two years.'

'I did.'

'What did he say to that?'

'He said «Not nearly long enough».'

'So what are you going to do?'

'I've done it,' said the old ancestor. 'I pinched his porringer.'

15

I goggled at her, one hundred per cent non-plussed. She had spoken with the exuberance of an aunt busily engaged in patting herself between the shoulder-blades for having done something particularly clever, but I could make nothing of her statement. This habit of speaking in riddles seemed to be growing on her.

'You what?' I said. 'You pinched his what?'

'His porringer. I told you about it the day you got here. Don't you remember? That silver thing he came to try to sell to Tom.'

She had refreshed my memory. I recalled the conversation to which she referred. I had asked her why she was entertaining in her home a waste product like L. P. Runkle, and she had said that he had come hoping to sell Uncle Tom a silver something for his collection and she had got him to stay on in order to soften him up with Anatole's cooking and put to him, when softened up, her request for cash for Tuppy.

'When he turned me down just now, it suddenly occurred to me that if I got hold of the thing and told him he wouldn't get it back unless he made a satisfactory settlement, I would have a valuable bargaining point and we could discuss the matter further at any time that suited him.'

I was ap-what-is-it. Forget my own name next. Appalled, that's the word, though shocked to the core would be about as good; nothing much in it, really. I hadn't read any of those etiquette books you see all over the place, but I was prepared to bet that the leaders of Society who wrote them would raise an eyebrow or two at carrying-ons of this description. The chapter on Hints To Hostesses would be bound to have a couple of paragraphs warning them that it wasn't the done thing to invite people to the home and having got them settled in to pinch their porringers.

'But good Lord!' I ejaculated, appalled or, if you prefer it, shocked to the core.

'Now what?'

'The man is under your roof.'

'Did you expect him to be on it?'

'He has eaten your salt.'

'Very imprudent, with blood pressure like his. His doctor probably forbids it.'

'You can't do this.'

'I know I can't, but I have,' she said, just like the chap in the story, and I saw it would be fruitless or bootless to go on arguing. It rarely is with aunts – if you're their nephew, I mean, because they were at your side all through your formative years and know what an ass you were then and can't believe that anything that you may say later is worth listening to. I shouldn't be at all surprised if Jeeves's three aunts don't shut him up when he starts talking, remembering that at the age of six the child Jeeves didn't know the difference between the poet Burns and a hole in the ground.

Ceasing to expostulate, therefore, if expostulate is the word I want, I went to the bell and pressed it, and when she asked for footnotes throwing a light on why I did this, I told her I proposed to place the matter in the hands of a higher power.

'I'm ringing for Jeeves.'

'You'll only get Seppings.'

'Seppings will provide Jeeves.'

'And what do you think Jeeves can do?'

'Make you see reason.'

'I doubt it.'

'Well, it's worth a try.'

Further chit-chat was suspended till Jeeves arrived and silence fell except for the ancestor snorting from time to time and self breathing more heavily than usual, for I was much stirred. It always stirs a nephew to discover that a loved aunt does not know the difference between right and wrong. There is a difference … at my private school Arnold Abney MA used to rub it into the student body both Sundays and weekdays … but apparently nobody had told the aged relative about it, with the result that she could purloin people's porringers without a yip from her conscience. Shook me a bit, I confess.

When Jeeves blew in, it cheered me to see the way his head stuck out at the back, for that's where the brain is, and what was needed here was a man with plenty of the old grey matter who would put his points so that even a fermenting aunt would have to be guided by him.

'Well, here's Jeeves,' said the ancestor. 'Tell him the facts and I'll bet he says I've done the only possible thing and can carry on along the lines I sketched out.'

I might have risked a fiver on this at say twelve to eight, but it didn't seem fitting. But telling Jeeves the facts was a good idea, and I did so without delay, being careful to lay a proper foundation.

'Jeeves,' I said.

'Sir?' he responded.

'Sorry to interrupt you again. Were you reading Spinoza?'

'No, sir, I was writing a letter to my Uncle Charlie.'

'Charlie Silversmith,' I explained in an aside to the ancestor. 'Butler at Deverill Hall. One of the best.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'I know few men whom I esteem more highly than your Uncle Charlie. Well, we won't keep you long. It's just that another problem presenting certain points of interest has come up. In a recent conversation I revealed to you the situation relating to Tuppy Glossop and L. P. Runkle. You recall?'

'Yes, sir. Madam was hoping to extract a certain sum of money from Mr Runkle on Mr Glossop's behalf.'

'Exactly. Well, it didn't come off.'

'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'

'But not, I imagine, surprised. If I remember, you considered it a hundred to one shot.'

'Approximately that, sir.'

'Runkle being short of bowels of compassion.'

'Precisely, sir. A twenty-minute egg.'

Here the ancestor repeated her doubts with regard to L. P. Runkle's legitimacy, and would, I think, have developed the theme had I not shushed her down with a raised hand.

'She pleaded in vain,' I said. 'He sent her away with a flea in her ear. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he laughed her to scorn.'

'The superfatted old son of a bachelor,' the ancestor interposed, and once more I shushed her down.

'Well, you know what happens when you do that sort of thing to a woman of spirit. Thoughts of reprisals fill her mind. And so, coming to the nub, she decided to purloin Runkle's porringer. But I mustn't mislead you. She did this not as an act of vengeance, if you know what I mean, but in order to have a bargaining point when she renewed her application. «Brass up,» she would have said when once more urging him to scare the moths out of his pocketbook, «or you won't get back your porringer». Do I make myself clear?'

'Perfectly clear, sir. I find you very lucid.'

'Now first it will have to be explained to you what a porringer is, and here I am handicapped by not having the foggiest notion myself, except that it's silver and old and the sort of thing Uncle Tom has in his collection. Runkle was hoping to sell it to him. Could you supply any details?' I asked the aged relative.