The Girl in Blue by P.G. Wodehouse

well say ‘Tut”, sir. Not to mention making allusions to the Gestapo and
calling me the fuzz, which is an expression she must have picked up at the
cinema.’
    ‘Monstrous,’
said Crispin, ‘monstrous.’ But what can I do?’
    ‘Dismiss
him from your service, sir. He is a disruptive element.’
    It was
a policy which Crispin would have been most happy to pursue, but there were
reasons, impossible to explain, why he was not at liberty to dismiss butlers
from his service. All his sympathies were with Ernest Simms, but he was
hampered, handicapped and helpless.
    ‘Well,
I’ll speak to him,’ he said, and was conscious even as he spoke how weak it
sounded.’
    That
the constable had formed a similar opinion was made plain by the stiffness of
his attitude as he took his departure.
    ‘Very
good, sir,’ was all he said, but if he had added, ‘And I suppose I ought not to
have expected anything better from a worm like you’, he would not have made his
sentiments clearer.
    Having
given him plenty of time to leave, Crispin went out on to the drive, where he
paced up and down, musing on the recent interview. It was a risky thing to do,
for out in the open like this he was in grave danger of being buttonholed by
his paying guests, by Colonel Norton-Smith, for instance, with his fund of good
stories of life in the Far East or R. B. Chisholm, who held gloomy views on
what was to become of us all if things went on the way they were doing; but he
needed air and, like Jerry, thought better when in motion.
    He was
anxious to find a solution for the problem of what precisely his employee had
had in mind when predicting that he would make Ernest Simms wish he had never
been born. It might be this or it might be that, but whatever the inner meaning
of the words they plainly implied some form of activity of which he would be
bound to disapprove.’ If there is one thing at which a peaceable householder
looks askance, it is the prospect of his butler making the police wish they had
never been born, and it is not to be wondered at that Barney, coming out of the
house, saw at once that all was not well with her host and being the kindly
soul she was proceeded to make enquiries.
    ‘Something
wrong?’ she said.
    Crispin
started with all the animation of a Mexican jumping bean, but recognizing who
it was that had spoken immediately became calmer. To Barney’s company he had no
objection; indeed he welcomed it. Since that first meeting in Willoughby’s
office he had grown very fond of her. He felt it would be a relief to confide
in her his fears and misgivings.’ When, therefore, she repeated her question,
he did not brush it off with a ‘No, no, nothing’, as he would have done had his
inquisitor been Colonel Norton-Smith or R. B. Chisholm.’ Coming, as the
expression is, clean, he said:
    ‘Yes, I
am extremely worried, Mrs Clayborne.’
    ‘Barney.’
    ‘Yes, I
am extremely worried, Barney. A most unpleasant situation has arisen.’
    ‘That’s
bad. We don’t want unpleasant situations arising, do we? Who’s been doing what?’
    ‘It’s
Chippendale.’
    ‘Who?’
    ‘My
butler. His name is Chippendale.’
    A less
considerate woman, given such an opening for the exercise of wit, would have
asked: ‘Has he made any good chairs lately?’, but Barney appreciated that this
was no time for jesting. Her heart was touched by Crispin’s obvious distress.
What, she enquired, had Chippendale been doing?
    It was
not so much, Crispin said, what he had been doing, though that was calculated
to make him a hissing and a byword at the bar of world opinion, as what he
might be going to do in the near future. The whole story came pouring out, and
Barney listened with the grave attention of a Harley Street specialist receiving
the confidences of a patient. When it ended, she had reassurances to offer.
    ‘I don’t
see where you have to worry. This Chippendale guy may talk big, but it’s just a
lot of hot air. Come right down to it, what