Work Text:
I’m not much of a writer, you know. Never had much of a hand for yarns. But now and then I like to give the boys at the club a chuckle, so I’ll jot down this and that about the Wooster day-and-daily, and that’s that. Well, Jeeves tends to catch me in the middle of it, and tells me I ought to get the things published. Didn’t think there was any hope of that - my aunts always said it wasn’t really literature, you see - but he simply wouldn’t drop it. And I remembered all the magazines I used to buy up and mimic as a youth, and thought - why not!
But it wasn’t all that. Submitted my first lark to at least a dozen facilities, and not one of them wanted me. Gave up the whole venture for a little while before sending it off again, and I’d still never heard so much as a good word. So I wasn’t expecting much when I woke up past noon to the serenade of sunshine and a fresh-faced Jeeves in my bedroom with tea and a silver platter.
“A letter for you, sir.”
“A letter? From who?”
“The Saturday Evening Post, sir.”
“The Post? Oh, dash it all, is this about my submission?”
“I believe it is, sir.”
I plucked the bally thing up, and took a stiff drink of Darjeeling to prepare me for the slap of it.
Dear Bertram Wilberforce Wooster:
We are pleased to inform you that your submission, “Extricating Young Gussie,” has been accepted for the September publication.
“Deuced rude of them to be pleased about rejecting it,” I thought. Then I realised I’d misread the end of the missive, and promptly hit the floor.
“Jeeves!”
“Are you quite all right, sir?” said my man as he calmly hoisted me up.
“You won’t believe it! They’ve taken my story, Jeeves!”
“Very good, sir,” said Jeeves, with his quirk of an almost-smile.
“Why, you hardly seem surprised!”
“That is because I have already read it, sir.”
“What!”
“You were discouraged by past rejections, sir, so I have taken the liberty of opening each letter in advance. I thought to reseal this one before giving it to you, sir.”
Now that I thought of it, he’d never handed me a single one of the disappointments. Only told me about them afterward. I’d just figured he had a way with the things - could sense the yea or nay right through the paper.
“What did you do with all the rejections, Jeeves?”
“I disposed of them, sir. They were not worth your consideration.”
“Disposed of them?”
“In the fireplace, sir.”
“Jeeves!” I gave him quite a stare. “That’s a bit dramatic, wouldn’t you say?”
“I would not, sir.”
“Well, I suppose you do know best.”
All at once, I didn’t care if there had been a hundred rejection letters. I was the most cheery I’d ever been. So full of beans I could burst.
“I say, Jeeves, this calls for a proper celebration!”
“Indeed, sir.”
“Bring out the champagne! The oldest flavour of it we have!”
“Right away, sir.”
“And bring two glasses of it!”
Jeeves gave me a disapproving look. “You have only just awoken, sir. Two glasses would not be suitable for your constitution - ”
“Oh, dash it all, Jeeves! The second one’s for you!”
He blinked like a frog in a strong wind. “For me, sir?”
“For you, Jeeves!”
And there came that almost-smile again. Couldn’t resist beaming right back at it.
“…Very good, sir.”
It’s a rather rummy thing, holding your own printed story in your own two hands. But that’s just what I had when they put out the Post in September, and dizzy isn’t the word. I felt bally well ready to collapse. They even gave it illustrations. And just after the Post had it published, the Strand hit me back and said they’d have a go at it too. The Strand! I’d never have believed it! Here I was, the unemployable good-for-nothing of the family, with my story running in two fashionable magazines! Why, it felt like the heavens were smiling down on me.
For once in his life, old Bertie Wooster had really done something right.
Well, I was feeling so awfully braced about it all that I went right back and returned to England. If Aunt Agatha came along to nag me, I felt sure I’d have the courage to pop her right in the jaw. Nothing could have brought me down. Though, when there was a polite bit of ringing at the entrance, I do confess that the Bertram bravery took a bit of a dive.
“What’s that, Jeeves? Are we expecting guests?”
“I am unaware of any, sir.”
“Hum! Well, I suppose we ought to get the door, what?”
“Indeed, sir,” said Jeeves, and trickled off in the general direction.
I cleaned up a bit and wandered on out of the bedroom in a minute or five. Can’t say I didn’t stall a little, given the sort of news uninvited guests tended to bring, but by the time I laid eyes on them I saw that all my worrying had been for nothing at all.
Seated in the parlour was my old pal Doctor Watson - a ruddy-cheeked chappie with a neat moustache and a bit of plumpness to him. He was an elderly sort these days, but he’d given me reams of advice and encouragement on my silly rounds of squiggle since I was a boy. Practically an uncle to me, by now, and a rather welcome sight.
“What ho, old top!” I gave him the hearty handshake, and he returned it with a smile up through the whiskers. “Visiting from Sussex, what?”
“Indeed I am, Mr. Wooster. I’ve brought my companion, if you don’t mind.”
Beside the good doctor was a tall, spindly sort of fellow, with chained-up spectacles perched on a beaky nose, and hair as white as the dollop of cream on my breakfast. He was sitting on the sofa in a rolled-up manner, and unfurled to full length upon seeing me with a brightish sort of smile.
“I hope you’ll forgive my accompanying him. But I was quite eager to meet you myself.”
The face wasn’t awfully familiar, but the voice rang quite the bell - one that had burst through the halls of my childhood home during an investigation of some sort, heard through the other side of a thick oak door after Aunt Agatha had shut me up in my room for the duration.
I goggled at him. “You aren’t Sherlock Holmes!”
“The very same!” He offered me a hand, and gave it a vigorous shake when I took it from him. “My dear Watson has told me a great deal about you.”
“You mustn’t overbear the man, Holmes. He’s still in shock.”
“I should be the one shocked!” he laughed, still going at my hand with a vengeance. “What a wit you have, for someone so young! Watson and I have had quite the chuckle at your work. Very charming indeed!”
It was all too much. Two idols in my parlour room, telling me what a talented young fellow I was. I began to think I’d passed away at some point without realising it.
“Sir?” said a soothing voice to my left, and I was dragged back down to Earth.
“More tea, if you wouldn’t mind it, Jeeves,” I bleated weakly, and fell to the couch like an ill-tossed skipping stone. “I think I may need it.”
“Very good, sir.”
Tea was procured in a moment, and tossed down the collective gullet, and I felt slightly more understanding of the reality of the world.
“So you’ve read it, then?” I squeaked politely. “My little piece in the Strand?”
“Oh, I certainly have!” Dr. Watson reached on into his satchel and withdrew two crisp copies of the thing, only a few days old. “And if it isn’t too much to ask of you, Mr. Wooster, I would greatly enjoy it if you signed it for us.”
“Me! An autograph!”
“Unless there is someone else we might get it from,” said the wiry old detective with a little smirk.
They plopped the mags in front of me, and I gave them the old scribble, careful as you please, with a suitable number of curlied cues as to appear a stand-up professional.
“I’m very proud of you, Mr. Wooster,” said Dr. Watson, hands folded in his lap all friendly-like. “You’ve grown to be quite the literary man.”
“Pish,” I replied with a flimsy wave of my hand, and a considerable burning in my cheeks.
“No pish at all, my dear boy!” Mr. Holmes shot his pal a mischievous look. “Watson may be prone to exaggerating talents, but you’re hardly a case of it. Now, tell me, how much of your story was true?”
We went on talking about that subject for a little while. After all, most of the story happened as-is, even if some of it didn’t. I’d changed a few names, of course, so the family wouldn’t strike the thing to Gehenna before it could even touch paper, and old Jeeves, who’d have saved me from all that business with my cousin otherwise, had been feeling under the weather at the time, so I’d largely left him out of my telling of it. Had a dashed hatred of being in less than tip-top shape, and I didn’t want to embarrass the fellow. But the good doctor and the grand detective watched me ramble on about it as if it were a deuced fascination - as if they really cared to hear what I, Bertie Wooster, had to say about the thing. Kindly old chaps, really. Topping of them to do so.
And all the while, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw that look of Jeeves’s crop up again - that little almost-smile.