“It is my letter of resignation, sir.”

There was a particular thingness - as he himself might have phrased it - to my master’s expression when I uttered those fateful words.  A slight widening of the eyes, the smallest parting of the lips in shock, and something else, something indefinable - a sort of sudden and intense depth of feeling in his ( Read more... )

While the doctor was examining Mr. Wooster, I attempted to busy myself in the kitchen.  It was not until I realized I was polishing the silver with the solution I generally use to do the washing up, that I was conscious of how preoccupied I was.  It was a mark of my concern for my master’s prognosis how little I fretted about my mistake ( Read more... )

Future readers of this account (though at the moment I cannot conceive as to who you might be), will no doubt by now consider my powers of perception remarkably dim and perhaps even have begun to wonder if my master’s memoirs were in fact nothing but works of utter fiction.

Again and again - when I learned of the missing bicycle, when I heard there ( Read more... )

The moment I stepped through the door, I knew I was alone in the flat.

Most days, I would have thought nothing of it.  I have often returned from marketing or some other errand to find Mr. Wooster out.  Usually I assume he has simply gone to his club, and I continue on with my usual household duties and trouble myself no further on the matter.  ( Read more... )

As we were still in the sweltering depths of August (Mrs. Travers predictions of the weather having proved very accurate), I decided the repast I was to make for Mr. Wooster’s luncheon should be a light one.  My preparations included a cold consommé, cucumbers with salad cream, cutlets and Scotch woodcock as a savoury to finish, with a light sponge ( Read more... )

Over the course of my and Mr. Wooster’s journey homeward, I cautioned myself many times not to expect that the return to our normal routine would in any way smooth over the current contretemps between us.  But it is in human nature to hope, and therefore, when for the first day or so, Mr. Wooster’s manner was not as cold and angry as I had feared, ( Read more... )

Though in my pride I have always struggled against the idea as being defeatist and therefore an obstacle to success in one’s endeavours, the simple fact which not even I can avoid, is that there are times in one’s life when there are no completely positive solutions.

As a servant, I have of course proffered many an apology for a diverse number of ( Read more... )

I was not prepared for my first sight of Mr. Wooster in his hospital bed to affect me as it did.

Why it should be so, I do not know.  He did not appear gravely injured.  There were no casts on his limbs and the bandages I knew must wrap his torso were hidden by his nightwear and the blankets.  There was no cough to be heard, nor were his cheeks ( Read more... )

Of all the quotations I had glibly offered up to my master over the years, none so pierced my being or reverberated through my conscience as a line I had never had occasion to say to him: “There smites nothing so sharp, nor smelleth so sour as shame.”  (1)  For he, as a good man, had never needed to hear it.

I, however, during that endless grey ( Read more... )

Mr. Nixon. I am not a fanciful man, but if there is one name I suspect will haunt the rest of my days, it is that one.

An absurd little story, sir, though I confess that I have always found it droll…

As it was, the porter's exclamation was so shocking, on top of everything else I had to feel guilty about, that it pulled me up sharply and caused me ( Read more... )