Jeeves is a marvel. I mean to say, what sort of a man would be able, with just a few skillful blows of a needle, to adapt the young master's spare suit so that it perfectly fit a castaway who wasn't doing much of the feeding on honeydew in the last few weeks? Not an ordinary man, you could bet your last doubloon.
When fortune has not smiled on a pal, a Wooster does not stint in ministering to the needy. With nothing more than a passing pang, I pulled off my own latest and dearest acquisition, a pair of suede dinner shoes, and handed them to Jeeves. "Jeeves," I said, "Pass these on to the Luthor chappie, to make glad his soul."
"I fear, sir, that Mr. Luthor would find little to appreciate in them."
"Tush, tush, Jeeves, free your mind of these prejudices." I waved a breezy hand. "Even if he lives in the American Middle West, a bean like Luthor knows a good thing when he sees it." Jeeves and I usually have but a single thought when it comes to decking out the well-dressed man, but he had found my suede shoes to be a sore trial to his proud soul, despite my pointing out their many virtues as an alternative to patent leather.
"From my observations, he does indeed, sir." Jeeves gave the much-wronged footwear the kind of glance that would have made the sheriff and the black-hatted bandit in Desperado's Days look as though they were heading off for a quick one and a game of darts. Disdainful, if that's the word I mean.
A friend of Jeeves once said that discretion is the better part of valor, and Jeeves took right to that phrase and passed it along on several occasions. I kept that in mind, after a quick glance at the clock told me only five minutes until the dinner gong would sound, and put them back on my own feet. "Very well, Jeeves," I said, and I meant it to sting.
You know, in all those novels where a chap comes home after the wars and finds that friends and f. have mourned him as one dead, all he has to do is come up with some cheery story of when he skinned his knee or show a scar or some such? Not so with young Luthor. Assyrians coming down on the fold have nothing on him when it comes to a good hot temper, though Aunt Agatha thwarted of her prey could still give him a run for his money. The long and the short of it was that being officially dead, he couldn't obtain conveyance from port back to the old homestead, so Jeeves and I offered a place at the front of our caravan. I felt it made up for not being able to lend him the suede shoes, at least.
Nothing stopped our fleet-footed return to Smallville, but when he saw a sporty red car outside his domicile, he turned flinty-eyed and his demeanor suggested "I would be alone." Jeeves and I, ever alert to the whims of a pal, took the hint and, wishing him a top-notcher of a day, decided to remind ourselves of the good old days of our last sojourn there.
"There have been several articles on the discovery of the Kewatche caves," Jeeves contributed to the feast of reason and flow of soul over a refreshing cup at the local tea hostlery. "I would be considerably interested in seeing them before we leave."
To each his own tastes is a Wooster motto and each man has his own pursuit of wild pleasures. Since we had time to spare, I decided that I may as well add myself to the legions of cave admirers and we set out to explore.
Just as we arrived, we heard shouting from a familiar voice, and grave replies from an unfamiliar one. Who was Jonathan Kent, honest yeoman of the soil, disagreeing with, I wondered, and so advanced on cat-like tread.