"Пэлем Вудхауз. Jeeves in the offing (Предложения Дживса, engl)" - читать интересную книгу автора

Пэлем Грэнвил Вудхауз.


Предложения Дживса (engl)



P.G.Wodehouse. Jeeves in the offing, 1960


---------------------------------------------------------------
Published: Penguin Books, 1963
OCR: Rojer, 2002
(more PGW titles to come, http://rojer.bdo.ru/PGW/) б http://rojer.bdo.ru/PGW/
---------------------------------------------------------------

1

Jeeves placed the sizzling eggs and b. on the breakfast table, and
Reginald ('Kipper') Herring and I, licking the lips, squared our elbows
and got down to it. A lifelong buddy of mine, this Herring, linked to
me by what are called imperishable memories. Years ago, when
striplings, he and I had done a stretch together at Malvern House,
Bramley-on-Sea, the preparatory school conducted by that prince of
stinkers, Aubrey Upjohn MA, and had frequently stood side by side in
the Upjohn study awaiting the receipt of six of the juiciest from a
cane of the type that biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder,
as the fellow said. So we were, you might say, rather like a couple of
old sweats who had fought shoulder to shoulder on Crispin's Day, if
I've got the name right.
The plat du jour having gone down the hatch, accompanied by some
fluid ounces of strengthening coffee, I was about to reach for the
marmalade, when I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose
to attend to it.
'Bertram Wooster's residence, 'I said, having connected with the
instrument. 'Wooster in person at this end. Oh hullo, ' I added, for
the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs Thomas
Portarlington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near
Droitwich - or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt
Dahlia. 'A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor, ' I said, well
pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew
the fat.
'And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,'
she replied cordially. 'I'm surprised to find you up as early as this.
Or have you just got in from a night on the tiles?'
I hastened to rebut this slur.
'Certainly not. Nothing of that description whatsoever. I've been
upping with the lark this last week, to keep Kipper Herring company.
He's staying with me till he can get into his new flat. You remember
old Kipper? I brought him down to Brinkley one summer. Chap with a