If you've read anything of mine, you'll have heard your fill of guardian stars or northern angels or whomsoever decides that existence is a liquid dish best garnished with a unrestrained pinch of Wooster, and I think you'll concur that my own whatever it may call itself from the powers that be has a rotten knack for wrenching me from the motherly embraces of peace and reason and drizzling life's most treacherous scenes of peril and woe over a chewed up husk of my former self. What you might also recognize, and oft groan and shake-head at, is that I have, as my aunt Dahlia puts it, faith in my winged star or shining angel. I hold fast that it will sort everything right again, with, and all due credit bequeathed, the assistance of my sublimely minded valet Jeeves. And do you know? Generally I am spot on the money.
However, this past year my cherubim star or nebulous angel had rather taken it on the chin, and having deemed me fit to see a new day dawning, stuck me into a pair of heavy wool trousers and threw me into the deep end of Loch Lomond, rhetorically speaking. I found myself giving up on the creature entirely. I'll yet spare you the ending, but on the whole it has been pretty remarkable, so I am going to remark on it for you.

The night on which the first blow fell was a hot and sticky one; nary a drip came from the dark clouds overhead.
"Jeeves," I sobbed from the sitting room where I had been desperately trying to nab a bit of breeze from the open window.
"Yes, sir?" He fluttered in.
"I'm caustic, Jeeves."
"It is exceedingly humid, sir. Perhaps a cold bathe before retiring would bring some relief."
"I'm sick of the bath."
"Might a scotch and soda satisfy, sir?"
"Can't hurt, I suppose," I grumbled.
He beetled off and took it to task. It was insufferable. It was that soupy kind of hot where you can feel your drink evaporate from your forehead before it's reached your stomach. Dash Jeeves's sensitivities on the relationship between garment and wrinkle, I had my slacks rolled up to my knees and had spent most of the day spread out on the floor. The evening was no better. Jeeves had served cold melon and cold cuts and a cold French bread with rocket. Despite its froreness, I could barely push it down. The birds had lost the will to peep and the engines bleated with the kind of half-heartedness often attributed to unsheared sheep in the desert.
I was just starting to think I could feel a shy stir in the atmosphere when an insolent knock at the door frightened it off. Jeeves pulled in a bit of my old school chum Richard Little and plopped him down in my nicer armchair.
"Oh, Bertie," he drooled.
"What ho, Bingo, bit late for dropping in, what?"
"Send me to God, Bertie, let him do his worst."
Something about his manner lead me to believe there was something amiss. I lent a kindly ear in his direction.
"What's that, old man?"
"I'm done for, Bertie."
"How is that, old thing?"
"I haven't got it, Bertie, I haven't got the dust. I don't know what to do. All one has to do is turn on the toaster and I'm done for."
He was absolutely off his chump. The heat had crazed him. He didn't seem the sort to dish out drivel of this caliber, yet here he was, ladle to my lips. He was quiet quite a while, then I pointed to my drink and tilted my head towards the poor whelk. He nodded oozily. I looked to Jeeves and he faded into the kitchen.
"Well? What?" I prodded.
"Well," Bingo sighed.
"Well?" I prodded again.
"Well..."
"Out with it, young Chip."
"Well! Well, I, It's those saucer eyes, Bertie, I couldn't resist her." I looked around for a straw to suck it out of him.
"Saucer who?"
"The…" He was blanched and silent for a flat moment then opened his mouth and held it open for another one.
"Horse…The horse. Yes."
"Ah. Not a cert?"
"What? Oh, yes- No, no, " He shook his head," It was a…it wasn't a cert, Bertie. And I laid down too much."
"Oh, well, harms done, eh? Nothing you can't recuperate from?"
"You don't understand, Bertie. It's quite a load of the stuff. The ruining sort of load."
"Oh," I actuated. "How much, then?"
He swallowed and then held his mouth open again. Like a babe awaiting the spoon.
"Ten."
"Well, that's nothing, old sport. Dollar under the bridge."
"Ten grand."
"…I say…I say."
"I'm done for Bertie."
"Now, I say."
A pregnant pause settled between us. I let an "I say," out to roam once more.
"How did this come about? You simply liked the look of the thing and broke a thousand to one?"
"Well, no, I…I liked the look of her and…"
"Broke a thousand to one?"
"My old uncle, Bertie, he'll sauté me!"
"Shall I ring for Jeeves?"
"No! No." he sat up and wrung his hands. "He'll know."
"Know what?"
"Er- nothing. That I've been a fool."
I relinquished the Jeeves suggestion.
"What about a loan? Or a Job? Don't you have stock or broth or whathaveyou?"
Bingo pepped up at this loan bit.
"But who could I loan from? What about my…my reputation?"
"Well, it'd have to be personal, I suppose. No one need ever see the stuff wasn't there, and all that."
I saw immediately where he had toddled off to, but let him go on out of hesitation.
"Yes, yes, Bertie, exactly, you needn't worry a thing, I'll give you all the money I get. It'd be like it was never not there. You haven't a clue how dire the circs are. I'm doomed otherwise, Bertie. I'm not like you, I don't bounce back to glory with a stick in my hand and a smile on my face. I'll live in poverty and shame for the rest of my days. I've got no one in the world but you, Bertie."
My heart bled for the poor fish. It was unlike Bingo to take such a mashing to the ego. He seemed genuinely bungled. I simply couldn't feed him to the wolves like this, not after everything. I washed down my balking conscience with the last of my drink and reached out my hand for him to shake.
"Of course I will lend you a leg, old thing."
"Good stuff! Good stuff!" He was positively chortling. I felt my conscience bubble back up with my soda. I couldn't help but feel I'd made a mistake somewhere. I wished silently for Jeeves; it was unusual for him to biff off for so long. Barely a second later than I'd made my wish he appeared from the kitchen with Bingo's drink.
"My apologies, sir. The ice is unusually difficult to split due to the changes in temperature."
"Not at all, Jeeves. Bingo and I have just come to a business agreement."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Took a wrong turn at the bookies," Bingo gargled sheepishly.
"So, how about a cheque?" He asked me, looking around for a book. I unsheathed it and began to make it out it to him, but he stopped me.
"-Ah, no, if you could make it out to Miron Bankley., there's a good man. The Bookie, you know."
I signed the thing and handed it over.
"Well. Now that's done, Bingo, I think I will retire early and attempt to escape this heat."
"Alright. Thanks ever so much Bertie."
"Yes, yes."
A new man, he downed his drink, donned his hat, and swung the door open all in one go. It was impressive.
"Bye bye, Bertie. See you tomorrow."
"Tally ho."
As soon as he was out the door I turned to Jeeves.
"You have heard all, Jeeves?
"Yes, sir."
"Do you think my actions unwise? Ought to have played the silent cohort, what?"
"It is not in Mr. Little's nature to return kindnesses promptly, sir, I cannot assure you that my confidences lie in the surety of his repaying the loan you have had the generosity to afford him."
"You may be right, Jeeves. I suppose we may only wait."
I stuck the bean back out the window and recommenced my pursual for the breath of nature.

I don't suppose I've ever clued you into the sort of clam I've got. Talk of a fellow's money is dashed vulgar and hardly discussed amongst the better element, never mind within improving literature. I believe it is pertinent, however, to contextualize, as Jeeves would say, these circs.
I receive an annual stipend from my inheritance, as dictated by my parent's last will and testament, concluding the full amount when I've ripened at 50. I was a reliable kid, kept out of the marzipan and said my collect and all that, but long before she died, my mother thought it prudent to give me an early grip on budgeting. Truthfully I've not much had to pay those things any mind, given I've had ample sum to feed a few small families since I was old enough to grow a beard, thanks to my uncle Tom. My mother didn't supply this annual prudence to my sister, and upon our father's death and her reaching inheriting age, she received all her stuff at once, which I've always thought was calling it a bit close to the limit. Any which way, I am fortunate enough that this first fiscal setback of which I have just narrated was not a terrible bother nor blow. I will not divulge too much, only that, while it was large, Jeeves was skilled enough to stretch the books and make whatever calculables he does to smooth things over. I even made a sort of peace with the thing of whether Bingo would refresh the loan or not. A fellow shouldn't mind his stash when he has so very much of it to give. Money has never mattered more to me than the happy faces of the people, and all that sort of thing.

However, the following month, I found myself palling around with an uncanny spot of Deja Vu. I was at the Drones taking a sojourn after a rather vigorous round of green pea taws, when a chuffed "What ho, Bertie!" broke the peace.
"What ho, Bingo!"
"What ho, Bertie!"
I raised my glass in his direction, not particularly longing for a ho-off.
"How's Phoebe?"
"Phoebe?"
"Your large dame with the small horse."
"Oh, she sailed to Athens three months ago."
"Oh."
"I say, Bertie."
"What say you, Bingo?"
"I, um, I ran into this old friend on, um, Chosworth boulevard yesterday, and he had this pretty topping idea of heading down to the- the hedgehog races, in Cheltinham, you know, and we had such good fun, and I made a bit of a living, believe it or not. Enough to erase that thing last month from the records, as a matter of fact, you know, but, um, the last round was a bit above my collar and, um, one of the little fellows sort of, tripped up a bit, and I rather lost my lot. And all that. Amusing, what?"
I narrowed my eyes, amused at nothing of the sort.
"Rotten luck," I said with a touch of the rebuke.
"Yes." The peace returned for a moment as we sat and watched a bit of dust make a southerly expedition.
"Only, um, Bertie, old school chum?"
"Yes, Bingo?"
"On that bit of coin you lent me a few weeks ago?"
"On it?"
"Well, I think I will break a brown egg with you because I've spouted another leak."
"What in hell do you mean, old sort?"
"I don't suppose you have round about another twenty grand lying about in one of those old boxes you have...lying about? Do you? Only round about?"
"Well…that is to say, why?" I bally well knew why, but on the off-chance I was wrong I thought I'd wield the question.
"Oh, just this last stint I mentioned a bit ago, you know? He fell short. My little fellow, I mean."
"That much on a hedgehog? Well, Bingo, I don't know if, um, if the old accountant would...I mean to say...a-and I-"
"But Bertie, we were at-"
"School together. Yes, yes, I was there. It's only that now I'm a bit…um…what with…"
"You know I'd never leave you high and dry, Bertie old cork! School, school, school! You understand how difficult this is for me. And he's rather bullish, this fellow..."
"Well, as hedgehogs must, being so small."
"No, no, the honch- the bookie."
"Ah, hot of head, is he?"
"The hottest!" He shuddered.
I couldn't abandon the Code like this, not on the toe of my oldest pal's misfortune. I gulped down my sours and drew out my chequebook.

"I would advise a legal drawing-up of this transaction, sir."
I'd just sat down to another cold supper after the dripping trek home, and had put the thing to Jeeves with not a little bit of moroseness.
"Would you, Jeeves?"
"Yes, sir, I would suggest seeking a solicitor or at least procuring a signed statement from the bank detailing Mr. Little's request, in the event that time might corrode the possibility for libel action."
"Pish. Bingo wouldn't let me down!"
I didn't completely believe these words even as they came out of my mouth. Rather, I disagreed with Jeeves on pride and principle.
"Nevertheless, sir, I would recommend exhibiting precautions."
"Very well, Jeeves, if I must. You know best."
"Thank you, sir."
By this time I was bulging a bit under the belt of financial impropriety, if you know what I mean. Of course, Jeeves advised elegantly, I thought. We canceled some overseas holidays, aborted a few gentleman's subscriptions, and let the johnnies at West Morgade Motors know I would indeed not be purchasing a natty Pola 200 after all. However, I couldn't get that yuck feeling out of my glottal region. For the first time in my life I felt myself questioning the Wooster Code. What if I was simply financing Bingo a bibb for betting problems? Or worse? I sensed there was something else afoot. I was more worried for him than myself at this point in the proceedings. Fortuitously, the next day cleared me of the Y. F. completely, only, not in the mode most chappies in my posish would wish.

I had dropped in at the drones the following evening for a spot of mingle, and had just come out around 9:00 to find the stolid air of the past few weeks now cooled and juicy, as if fresh air had given up on the bore of the seaside and come to the city for some excitement. I decided to walk home. Mark this, for you will come to scorn my indulgence of the simple pleasures.

I was just flowing around a corner where two streets named after Scandinavian priests intersects with an alley that looks like the gap between the stove and the icebox. It was from this alley that a repellent, stiff-haired blighter with a face like an alligator's anus slunk out and grabbed me by the lapels, yanking me back in with him.
"Oi!" I put it to him that I was not abreast with this yanking idea.
"Mr. Wooster," He grunted
"Er- must be, what?" I didn't like the look of this bloke.
"You've just run into a lot of trouble, Mr. Wooster."
"H- Have I, have?" I asked, choking on the parch that had just leeched my tongue of its English fluency.
"That Mr. Little's got a lot of gall not putting us in touch sooner."
"What, Bingo?
"That's right. About time you learned the truth of his activities."
"Is it?"
"Yes, in fact, might as well educate you right here...You're familiar with Mr. Little's gambling problems of late?"
He uttered these 'gambling problems' with a kind of wispy curl of the lip that I found churlish. I nodded.
"What little Mr. Bingo has neglected to mention is that he hasn't gambled a penny."
"I say,"
"He has made the little mistake of indulging in some dalliances among distasteful company."
There was that rum whisp again.
"Oh?"
"Yes, Mr. Wooster. Very distasteful."
"Oh, ah."
"Do you take my meaning, Mr. Wooster?"
"I'm afraid I'm at some sort of a loss."
"Mr. Little has been engaging in activities."
"Oh?"
"Licentious activities, Mr. Wooster."
"Lascivious? Activities?"
"Yes," he whispered, "Lubricious activities."
"Oh, ah."
"You understand now, Mr. Wooster."
"Do I?"
The man leaned back and made a huff of frustration, which was jolly unfair, I thought.
"According to several witnesses," He began, "Mr. Little has been observed in a state of intimacy with a moxphrodite."
"Oh?!" Times like these a chap wishes he has a wider vocabulary of vowels.
"Sources say Mr. Bingo was made aware of the individual's subterfuge very early on in the evening, and yet continued to share the individual's company into the morning." He sneered again. That wispy one.
"And what terrible luck when the same witnesses happened to stumble upon the two together again only a few days ago."
"Not with a hedgehog, surely?"
"No, Mr. Wooster, with a pansy male-woman."
"Oh, ah. Of course. Silly."
"My friends and I, we are a sympathetic group of men, Mr. Wooster. We understand the hardships and bureaucracies of the aristocratic bachelor."
"Oh, I don't know, it's not so bad, really."
"You have been very kind to your friend, Mr. Wooster. As have we. Ours is the kind of generosity one can never fully repay."
"Well, we were in school together, you know."
"You must care very much for your friend...would hate to see disgrace come to his name."
"Oh, oh, Rather."
"If something should perhaps...upset someone...or if the winds failed to carry voices beyond prying ears...it would be a terrible blow for Mr. Bingo, wouldn't it? What with one illegal indecency and another. You understand."
I nodded. I was beginning to catch the drift of this blighter. To tell the truth, this divulgence did not do me any kind of turn whatsoever. Bingo has never been a stickler of any sort, let alone one to, oh what's that word...discrepate, yes, one to discrepate against women to whom life repeatedly hands a trowel and galoshes when what they really want is a pair of gloves and some hedge trimmers. If this woman was the sweetness and light of Bingo's pilgrim's progress, who was I to raise an eyebrow about whether or not this filly's mother had called her Whilberton or Bartholemiew in the nursery. Jolly heartening, I'd say. Recaptures your faith in the English brawn. I knew, of course, many feel not as I do, and would take any and every opportunity to glaze the parties involved in egg white and stick them in a 400 degree oven for three quarters of an hour. If this alligator had not been trying to drive my esophagus round the back of my head, I would have soliloquized all out loud. Unfortunately, he had the table.
"Well, now. What think you of ten thousand? Cheque, of course." I couldn't answer, so I yipped. I mean to say, a chap can be blunt if he likes, but this was positively the pestle in a wheat-grinding mill.
"What think you of ten thousand pounds, Mr. Wooster?"
"I- I don't have ten thousand. I gave it all to Bingo."
Only a lie by a few potential overdrawn thousand pounds. This bird had obviously not entertained the limitations of aristocrats with miserly mothers.
"Ah, that is an issue, yes. But perhaps you haven't understood."
The man used one arm to keep me pinned to the wall and the other to pull out an eggy kind of mustard envelope. He handed it to me with a limp wrist as if it smelled of what it looked like. I peeled the thing open and reached inside with the kind of apprehension one has when expecting to soon find his hand sans important fingers.
"Oh, I say, what?" I'd pulled out two things that looked jolly well like those cheques I'd made out to Bingo that day a fateful few weeks ago.
"Ohhh. You're Mr. Bankley!" The bloke stoppered my conjecture with his hand clamped over my mouth
"Not so loud, Mr. Wooster, you'll raise the babes of the neighborhood from their peaceful slumbers. He removed his hand and I guffawed quietly at him. There were a few more documents inside the envelope. I pulled these out and shook my head disapprovingly. They seemed to get worse and worse. I'll dictate, for I'm sure they shall peak your interest.
- A largish piece of paper listing B. W. Wooster (myself), the contents of his bank account, his address, and a description of his person (very like me, though I couldn't help but sniff at the way they named my dress sense as "occasionally capricious".
- A smaller, sketchy sort of napkin with a list of assorted family members and friends of B. W. Wooster (still myself); Aunt Dahlia and Uncle Travers, cousins Angela and the twins Claud and Eustace, old mate and Angela's fiancé Tuppy, Stiffy Byng, Stinker Pinker, Roderick Glossop (oddly), Bingo (obviously), and someone else. A cold what-sit played some arpeggios on my spinal column as I read a chilling 'Aunt: Agatha Spencer'. They had the goods on me, there was no denying it.
"I see. See. S- so, er."
"These documents can take you and Mr. Bingo a very long way into hell, Mr. Wooster." He tapped the cheques with a yellow, crocodile finger.
"I don't doubt you, old man." I took a shaky breath. I tried to picture the kind of scheme Jeeves might advise for this sticky situash. All I could think about was how rotten he'd deem this blighter's outfit. At last I reasoned getting out of danger's armpit the best I could do for the preservation of the future B.W.W,. Wasn't exactly gung ho on being found sliced to bits in this rum alleyway, if you catch my drift.
"Well. I suppose there's nothing else for it. Have you a pen?"

I arrived home in a bit of a stupor. The sky had darkened a goodish shade since my reptilian encounter, and the closer I got to home, the worser my life became. Two thousand pounds overdrawn! The world suddenly seemed a very bleak place to be. I finally understood the gloomy philosophy of those destitute coves from Charlie Dickens' novels. What do to! I couldn't wrap the Wooster lobe around this viscous eel of an issue.

I reached that word for a safe place around 10PM. Sanctity? Salvatory? Sanctuary, that's it. I couldn't look Jeeves in the eye. There was a stale shame in the back of my throat. I distantly discerned a question on the wellness of my evening, but I couldn't bring myself to answer. Once doffed of my hat and coat, I dropped onto the sedan and placed the overwrought onion in the hands. One or two plaintiff 'Sir's' from my man coaxed me into peering at him from between my fingers. Jeeves's cool, stoic visage sent me into another spiral and I moaned a groan of the self pit.
He had read the anguish in my demeanor. I could tell from the proximity at which he was standing. A nice, intimate four or five feet.
"Just a Millicent, old fruit."
"You desire a millisecond, sir?"
"Yes, one of those. And a brandy if you would."
"By all means, Sir." He stepped away to pour me the medicine and I watched him do it as I tried to blink away the catastrophes of circs from reality before he had capped the bottle. Futile. He soon handed me the glass and I chucked it down and returned it for another. He delivered this second and then stood his respectful distance to await the Y.M.'s tale of woe. I fixed my eyes on his tie, as I still couldn't manage his face. "I'm in the clammiest chowder, Jeeves. O- Or the most clammless, rather."
"Indeed, sir?"
I ran him over the hot coals of the matter. For a while after I'd concluded the account, he stood silently with his upper lip set slightly above his bottom one in an almost lip-biterly direction. Then he took the glass from my hand which I had not realized was empty, and filled me up another.
"I can readily understand your discomfort, sir."
"Discomfort?! I'm bleeding out, Jeeves."
"The stressors of the situation are indeed most oppressive, sir. However,"
"Yes?"
"...If I may take the liberty, sir."
"Always, Jeeves. As many as you'd like. Have the lot."
"Thank you, Sir. I have always held the view that you possess several talents,"
"Thank you, Jeeves."
"And would feel that given the apt conditions they would only serve to benefit you."
I had to think on the meaning of this for a few ticks. "Ah, get a job, you say."
"Not in so many words, sir, but I believe a limited search would provide an adequate opportunity to put these talents to use, for the time being. Additionally, your social status will only aid in finding a high-paying position. It may take some fortitude, but I bid you recall the tools you have yet at your disposal." The man was correct to the core. I had my doubts, of course, but the idea was far from apple sauce.
"In the meantime, sir, I would recommend us searching for new, more affordable accommodation. Since, given the fragility of the conditions, appointing legal agency is no longer judicious, I suspect Mr. and Mrs. Travers would oblige the small sum needed to clear some of the debt. Shall I call to arrange a meeting?"
"Well, yes, but dash it Jeeves, what will I tell them it's for? Anyways, what about the rest of the mean-time? How will I do without the little joys of life-" An icy sort of bellyache hit me with a cosh.
"Jeeves! Calamity!" I placed the onion in the hands once more, "I can't keep you on! There's no way! There's simply no bally way! One or two weeks without you here and there is bad enough, but who knows how long it'll be until I can afford you again! Maybe never! How will I live?!" Jeeves considered for another moment. Or at least, I assumed he was considering, cloistered from behind my hands as I was.
"Well, sir," He began "As of last Saturday and our regular schedule, you have already done me the kindness of advancing the pay for my services corresponding to the coming month, which begins this Tuesday. I will take a liberty in asserting that my assistance will settle you in a position of comfort for the time being, given the circumstances. Should this prove successful, I believe, given a year or so, due to your annual allowance among other factors, your finances shall indeed rebuild themselves and I would be glad to return to your service."
He would wait for me. For this lone consolation I would not let granted take. Like an inspired and desperate alchemist, staking his very life on some dark hope1, whatever that meant, I put on a brave face for the fellow.
"Good sport, Jeeves. Good man. Thus will I do my very best to win you back."
"I am much obliged, sir."

, Alastor; or, the Spirit of Solitude.