‘Still,’ I said, feeling that it was worth trying, ‘it’s part of the great web, what?’

‘Great web?’

‘One of Marcus Aurelius’s cracks. He said: “Does aught befall you? It is good. It is part of the destiny of the Universe ordained for you from the beginning. All that befalls you is part of the great web.”’

From the brusque manner in which he damned and blasted Marcus Aurelius, I gathered that, just as had happened when Jeeves sprang it on me, the gag had failed to bring balm. I hadn’t had much hope that it would. I doubt, as a matter of fact, if Marcus Aurelius’s material is ever the stuff to give the troops at a moment when they have just stubbed their toe on the brick of Fate. You want to wait till the agony has abated.

This was ridiculously good fun. I love Jeeves and Wooster series but some stories are better than others, and this was one of the best ones. Dare I say, it was on the same level as the one with Aunt Dahlia and the cow creamer?  I like that one, too. 

Anyway, in this one Bertie is trying to help a couple of his friends to untangle some obstacles in their love lives, and of course, just makes it worse. What stood out from the start in this one, however, is that Bertie is not just having to deal with one of his own aunts, but also no less than five aunts of one of his friends' betrothed...and five aunts is really more than anyone should be expected to deal with.

While there is slapstick galore in this story, we also get to see Bertie from new angles. For example, we learn that he - as many of us do - resorts to reading to calm his nerves:

"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea."

She disappeared, and I was alone once more with the cat.

There is, as Jeeves rather neatly put it once, a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune, and I could see clearly enough that this was it.

What is known as the crucial moment had unquestionably arrived, and any knowledgeable adviser, had such a one been present, would have urged me to make it snappy and get moving while the going was good.

But recent events had left me weak. The spectacle of Madeline Bassett so close to me that I could have tossed a pebble into her mouth – not that I would, of course – had had the effect of numbing the sinews. I was for the nonce a spent force, incapable even of kicking the cat, which, possibly under the impression that this rigid Bertram was a tree, had now started to sharpen its claws on my leg.

And it was lucky I was – a spent force, I mean, not a tree – for at the very moment when, had I had the horse-power, I would have been sailing through the dining-room window, a girl came out of it carrying a white, woolly dog. And a nice ass I should have looked if I had taken at the flood the tide which leads on to fortune, because it wouldn’t have led on to fortune or anything like it.

It would have resulted in a nasty collision on the threshold.

Hehe. Btw, there are lots of Shakespeare references in this one. 

‘Corky,’ I said, ‘I want a long, heart to heart talk with you.’

‘Not about Hollywood?’

‘No, not about Hollywood.’

‘Thank God. I don’t think I could have stood any more Hollywood chatter this afternoon. I wouldn’t have believed,’ she said, proceeding, as always, to collar the conversation, ‘that anybody except Louella Parsons and Hedda Hopper could be such an authority on the film world as is Mrs Clara Wellbeloved. She knows much more about it than I do, and I’ll have been moving in celluloid circles two years come Lammas Eve. She knows exactly how many times everybody’s been divorced and why, how much every picture for the last twenty years has grossed, and how many Warner brothers there are. She even knows how many times Artie Shaw has been married, which I’ll bet he couldn’t tell you himself. She asked if I had ever married Artie Shaw, and when I said No, seemed to think I was pulling her leg or must have done it without noticing. I tried to explain that when a girl goes to Hollywood she doesn’t have to marry Artie Shaw, it’s optional, but I don’t think I convinced her. A very remarkable old lady, but a bit exhausting after the first hour or two.

Did you say you wanted to speak to me about something.’

‘Yes, I did.’

Hahaha.

"I have generally found on these occasions when the heart is heavy that the best thing to do is to curl up with a good goose-flesher and try to forget, and fortunately I had packed among my effects one called Murder At Greystone Grange. I started to turn its pages now, and found that I couldn’t have made a sounder move. It was one of those works in which Baronets are constantly being discovered dead in libraries and the heroine can’t turn in for a night without a Thing popping through a panel in the wall of her bedroom and starting to chuck its weight about, and it was not long before I was so soothed that I was able to switch off the light and fall into a refreshing sleep, which lasted, as my refreshing sleeps always do, till the coming of the morning cup of tea."

I hear you, Bertie. I hear you. Who doesn't love a good goose-flesher to soothe one's mind?

This is an excellent Wooster story, btw. I'm loving this. 

‘No, sir. The young gentleman is unmarried. He resides at the Hall with his five aunts.’

‘Five?’

‘Yes, sir. The Misses Charlotte, Emmeline, Harriet and Myrtle Deverill and Dame Daphne Winkworth, relict of the late P. B. Winkworth, the historian. Dame Daphne’s daughter, Miss Gertrude Winkworth, is, I understand, also in residence.’

On the cue ‘five aunts’ I had given at the knees a trifle, for the thought of being confronted with such a solid gaggle of aunts, even if those of another, was an unnerving one. Reminding myself that in this life it is not aunts that matter but the courage which one brings to them, I pulled myself together.

Hahahaha.