Jeeves sometimes refers to something a pal of his, William Blake said about a worm, that "Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy: And his dark secret love Does thy life destroy." Though he says the context is quite different, I suspect Blake came up with the phrase while in a situation much like the one yours truly was facing.

When Aunt Dahlia suggested a cruise on her yacht, I considered it just the thing for refreshing the fibers after a wearying time in London. I'd been eluding, if that's the word I want, the designs of one Madeleine Bassett, who was determined to make a brighter, purer, more ethereal being out of your Bertie. Since her plans included the elimination of drinking, nights at the Drones, and such mild convivialities of life, and in place of all that which maketh a man's heart glad, a vegetarian diet, hot water at meals, and meditation in the early hours of the day, I was struggling with all my might to avoid this. Unfortunately, aside from the generations of Wooster chivalry that kept me from telling her to dunk her head, she has this confiding way of nestling up to one, at which point her profile becomes a distraction, and even strong men are bound to stammer things like, "Right ho, of course," and then realize later that they've agreed to join a yoga group or some such thing.

Since Aunt Dahlia has an unfortunate habit of calling me a pathetic young puppy with the spine of a jellyfish and the brains of an under-educated turnip when I confide such crises to her, I rather neglected to mention that I was in flight from rampant bean cutlets and such threats to life and l.. Not only did I, not having Jeeves' brains, fail to ask whether the yacht would harbor such menaces, I suggested that Gussie Fink-Nottle, a poor old school chum who for some reason would worship even a bean cutlet that Madeleine bestowed a glance upon, accompany me. Her response was that she had planned a cruise, not a gathering of the feeble-minded, but if I must bring him along, I must.

Unfortunately, she hadn't mentioned that Madeleine was on the guest list, and the Wooster reaction of gulping and stuttering at seeing her had convinced her that I was madly in love and, in general, galloping towards undying declarations of l.. Worse, she saw this as a chance to renew her efforts towards breaking the proud Wooster spirit into bean cutlet consumption.

So to sum up, the cruise was not as soothing to the nerves as I had imagined, what with Madeleine telling me horrible things about eating flesh and asking me not to do it for her sake, Gussie looking like a thingummie without its whatsit, and me hiding from the whole circs as I best could.

On that particular afternoon, I knew that Madeleine was watching for dolphins, or, as she put it, "our playful spirit brothers and sisters," on one side of the deck, so I clung to the other side. I was idly flicking a telescope this way and that and Jeeves swanned up with the air of a man just knowing that the Wooster fibers required another jolly martini, and not, as Madeleine would have suggested, wheat-grass juice or some such horror to the eyes and heart.

"I say, Jeeves, what a jolly grand time this would be if one could enjoy it in peace."

"Yes, sir."

"After all," I enlarged, beginning to grow eloquent, "The sea air is a good thing, a change from the metrop. Not that one would ever forsake the bustling city, but a pleasant change. Never let it be said that a Wooster cannot enjoy variety. Anatole's cooking remains the envy of princes. What's that thing you say about gold miners?"

"Gold miners, sir?"

"Yes, some snappy thing about prospectors and things being what-ho all round."

"Ah, yes, sir. 'Where every prospect pleases, and only man is vile.' Wordsworth, sir."

"Well, putting down the stuff about man being vile as just his having had too many stiff ones with the chappies, here, you could say that every prospect pleases, except for that of being forced to convert to-"

Jeeves had suddenly turned his attention to an island the yacht was passing, and when a man of Jeeves' caliber turns his attention, you might well say that attention is worth turning. He turned a telescope in an expert manner, and then exclaimed, "Excuse me, sir, I must inform the pilot that there is a castaway who appears to be requesting rescue."