kind of sketch of what she would say, think, and do if I didn’t keep him clear of injurious influences while he was in America. The letter came by the afternoon mail, and left me with a pretty firm conviction that it wasn’t a thing I ought to keep to myself. I didn’t even wait to ring the bell: I whizzed for the kitchen, bleating for Jeeves, and butted into the middle of a regular tea-party of sorts. Seated at the table were a depressed-looking cove who might have been a valet or something, and a boy in a Norfolk suit. The valet-chappie was drinking a whisky and soda, and the boy was being tolerably rough with some jam and cake. “Oh, I say, Jeeves!” I said. “Sorry to interrupt the feast of reason and flow of soul and so forth, but——” At this juncture the small boy’s eye hit me like a bullet and stopped me in my tracks. It was one of those cold, clammy, accusing sort of eyes—the kind that makes you reach up to see if your tie is straight: and he looked at me as if I were some sort of unnecessary product which Cuthbert the Cat had brought in after a ramble among the local ash-cans. He was a stoutish infant with a lot of freckles and a good deal of jam on his face. “Hallo! Hallo! Hallo!” I said. “What?” There didn’t seem much else to say. The stripling stared at me in a nasty sort of way through the jam. He may have loved me at first sight, but the impression he gave me was that he didn’t think a lot of me and wasn’t betting much that I would improve a great deal on acquaintance. I had a kind of feeling that I was about as popular with him as a cold Welsh rabbit. “What’s your name?” he asked. “My name? Oh, Wooster, don’t you know, and what not.” “My pop’s richer than you are!” That seemed to be all about me. The child having said his say, started in on the jam again. I turned to Jeeves. “I say, Jeeves, can you spare a moment? I want to show you something.” “Very good, sir.” We toddled into the sitting-room. “Who is your little friend, Sidney the Sunbeam, Jeeves?” “The young gentleman, sir?”
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