Joy in the Morning

‘Precisely, sir.’
I drew a deep breath.
‘You wouldn’t consider at least climbing a tree?’
‘No, sir.’
I drew another one.

CHAPTER 1
A fter the thing was all over, when peril had ceased to loom and happy endings had been distributed in heaping handfuls and we were driving home with our hats on the side of our heads, having shaken the dust of Steeple Bumpleigh from our tyres, I confessed to Jeeves that there had been moments during the recent proceedings when Bertram Wooster, though no weakling, had come very near to despair.
‘Within a toucher, Jeeves.’
‘Unquestionably affairs had developed a certain menacing trend, sir.’
‘I saw no ray of hope. It looked to me as if the blue bird had thrown in the towel and formally ceased to function. And yet here we are, all boomps-a-daisy. Makes one think a bit, that.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘There’s an expression on the tip of my tongue which seems to me to sum the whole thing up. Or, rather, when I say an expression, I mean a saying. A wheeze. A gag. What, I believe, is called a saw. Something about Joy doing something.’
‘Joy cometh in the morning, sir?’
‘That’s the baby. Not one of your things, is it?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Well, it’s dashed good,’ I said.
And I still think that there can be no neater way of putting in a nutshell the outcome of the super-sticky affair of Nobby Hopwood,

I saw no ray of hope

driving home with our hats on the side of our heads

‘“Alas, regardless of their fate, the littl

flick the baited hook

honeysuckle-covered cottage

with a heart for any fate

‘I do. After what happened at lunch to-day.’
I was conscious of a sudden, quick concern.
‘Your lunch with Uncle Percy?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Didn’t it go well?’
‘Not too well.’
‘Nobby was anticipating that it would bring home the bacon.’
‘Ha! God bless her optimistic little soul.’
I gave him one of my keen looks. There was a sombre expression on his map. The nose was wiggling in an overwrought way. It was easy to perceive that pain and anguish racked the brow.
‘Tell me all,’ I said.
He unshipped a heavy sigh.
‘You know, Bertie, the whole idea was a mistake from the start. She should never have brought us together. And, if she had to bring us together, she ought not to have told me to be bright and genial. You know about her wanting me to be bright and genial?’

How bright? How genial?” Shall he, that is to say, be just a medium ray of sunshine, or shall he go all out and shoot the works? I thought it over, and decided to bar nothing and be absolutely rollicking. And that, I see now, is where I went wrong.’