Fic: Jeeves and the Mesmerism Incident
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indeedsir_backupTITLE: Jeeves and the Mesmerism Incident
AUTHOR: youofwales
FANDOM: Jeeves and Wooster
PAIRING: Generic fic
RATING: The faintest whiff of PG
SUMMARY: Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps has been practicing his mesmerism skills, much to Bertie's dismay.
NOTES: Cross-posted to fryandorlaurie.
DISCLAIMER: Jeeves and Wooster don't belong to me. They belong to P.G. Wodehouse. So please don't sue.
The first thing I saw upon my arrival at home was Jeeves sprawled in a most unusual manner on the Chesterfield. Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps was standing over him, looking highly triumphant.
“Barmy!” I squeaked, fumbling for the doorknob I’d just released. I was preparing to leg it while trying to look as if I’d never entertained the thought of legging it in my life.
He looked at me with his usual saturnine, lumpy expression. “Oh, hullo, Bertie.”
“It’s all very well to say ‘hullo,’” I said. “You haven’t just come home to discover that your man’s been…well…”
“What?” Barmy said. “Oh! No, Bertie, I haven’t done anything to harm Jeeves! Look—he’s still breathing!”
Much as I wanted to dart forward and ensure that Jeeves was still breathing, I was no fool. The moment the chappie in the murder mystery lets his guard down is the moment he gets biffed soundly on the head with the silver candlestick. “So you say.”
“His chest’s going up and down,” Barmy said.
This was true, so I took a cautious step forward. “Then what happened? Did he faint?”
“He’s in a trance.” Barmy looked unaccountably proud of himself. “I mesmerised him.”
“You did what?” I took hold of Jeeves’s shoulder, giving it a shake, but he did not awaken.
“Mesmerised him,” Barmy said. “It’s all the rage these days. You can make a chap do the silliest things!”
“Well, I don’t want Jeeves doing silly things,” I said. It unnerved me to think of Barmy muddling his way through Jeeves’s great brain and playing merry hell with the contents. “Wake him, please.”
Barmy looked disappointed. “But Bertie…”
“Confound it, Barmy, wake him this instant!”
Barmy snapped his fingers, and Jeeves blinked. He was standing before either of us had time to say anything.
“I apologize, sir,” Jeeves said. “I cannot imagine what happened.”
“I can,” I said, stepping forward and studying Jeeves. He looked all right to me. “Feeling all right, are you, Jeeves?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeeves said, looking nonplussed at my inquiry.
“Do you feel the urge to do anything silly?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” I said. I seemed to have arrived at the flat just in time to prevent calamity.
Barmy had worked his way to the door, but he stood there for a moment, vacillating. “I’m sorry, Jeeves. I’m most awfully sorry.” He departed.
Jeeves turned to me. “To what is Mr Fotheringay-Phipps referring, sir?”
“He mesmerised you, Jeeves,” I said. “Dashed tricky business. I can’t say I know much about it.”
“Mesmerism, sir, as its name might suggest, originated with a man called Frederick Mesmer, although variations of his art have existed for thousands of years, particularly in India. It entails convincing a subject to relax to the extent that the subject becomes mentally pliable and willing to respond to the suggestions of the person in control of the process. I find it somewhat dispiriting that Mr Fotheringay-Phipps was attempting to perform such an act on me.”
“Well, you can stop worrying, Jeeves,” I said. “Thankfully, I arrived before he could plant any suggestions in your temporarily pliable brain.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jeeves said, looking uncommonly relieved.
I sat at the piano, glad that all had been suitably arranged, and pinged middle C as a prelude to my playing.
“I say!”
It took me a moment to realize that spirited exclamation had come from Jeeves. It took me several more moments to be able to work air into my lungs. I forced myself to turn and look at Jeeves.
“What ho,” I said cautiously.
Jeeves’s eyes grew wide and round to a degree I should have thought impossible. “It’s uncanny.”
“Uncanny?” I said.
Jeeves drew closer. “How much you look like me!” His voice had changed utterly; it seemed now to brim with vivacity. His joie was distinctly vivred—there could be no doubt about it.
“But I don’t look anything like you,” I said.
“You do, down to the slightest detail.” Jeeves shook his head in amazement. “They say everyone has a double in the world. I suppose you must be mine.”
I was beginning to feel somewhat uneasy about all this, but was unable to determine why. Jeeves was generally such an oasis of calm that it was dizzying to see him in such an animated state…but there was something more deeply disturbing about this, something I hadn’t yet unearthed.
“Wait until I tell Jeeves,” Jeeves said.
“Are…” My voice failed, and I swallowed hard, marshalling it round. “Aren’t you Jeeves?”
“Good Lord, no!” Jeeves said, looking amused. Then he wet his lips, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet and shoving his hands into his pockets.
Good Lord! I knew those mannerisms—the lip-wetting, the foot-rocking, and above all, the hand-pocketing. Jeeves wasn’t merely acting peculiar; he was acting like someone else.
He was acting like me.
“I say, J-Bertie,” I said, testing my theory, “do you know when Jeeves will be back?”
Jeeves shook his head, sprawling on the Chesterfield contentedly. “It’s difficult to say. Jeeves is a man enveloped in an enigma. He walks in mystery like the something-or-other.”
This was a blow. Jeeves could always be relied upon for his encyclopaedic knowledge of verse, and now he couldn’t even remember oft-quoted lines. I couldn’t either, of course, but Jeeves ought to be able to, even if he did think he was me.
I turned back to the piano, frowning. What had I done to bring on the change in Jeeves’s manner? Then I remembered, and with a contented smile, I pinged middle C with all the force I could muster.
That should, of course, have set things right, and it probably would have if I hadn’t struck the key quite so hard. However, I did strike the key hard, and the force of the hammer caused a loud snapping sound to emanate from inside the piano. The wire had broken. I was entirely without middle C.
“Bad luck, old chap!” Jeeves said sympathetically, still reclining. “Can you manage without that note, do you think?”
Needless to say, I had grievous doubts on that matter. How was I to find my way clear of this, other than the obvious method of hiring a piano tuner? Perhaps middle C was only the stimulus that made Jeeves think he was me, and would do nothing in the reverse direction.
It was no good, my going on like this. What I really needed was Jeeves, and although I had him, he would be no better at solving this dilemma than I would. But Jeeves wasn’t Jeeves, and I certainly wasn’t.
Just then, by the most enormous stroke of luck, I had one of the best thoughts one of the Wooster line has ever had—and we haven’t exactly been shirkers in that department.
I picked up the phone and rang Barmy.
***
Barmy hovered near the doorway, looking unwilling to come in. “Listen, Bertie, I apologised earlier.”
“Dash it, Barmy, I don’t care about that,” I said, catching him by the arm and secreting him toward the bedroom. Jeeves was perusing the latest racing form and did not see us pass.
“Now,” I said, once I had closed the bedroom door, “do to me whatever you did to Jeeves.”
“But you already think you’re you,” Barmy said, blinking at me.
“No, no, not that!” I said. “You see, I need Jeeves, but Jeeves cannot, at this moment, be Jeeves.”
“Right,” Barmy said with a nod.
“So I shall be Jeeves instead,” I said. “Mesmerise me and tell me that, when you bring me to full consciousness, I will become Jeeves and not myself.”
Barmy’s brow creased. “This is all a bit complicated.”
“Yes, well, you needn’t bother thinking it through. I already have,” I said. “Will you do it?”
Barmy nodded. “Look into my eyes.”
I did as he said, and found myself growing very relaxed. Very relaxed indeed. This was all rather pleasant, really.
***
I opened my eyes and found Mr Fotheringay-Phipps regarding me with a look of supreme hesitancy.
“Jeeves?” he said cautiously.
“Sir?” I said.
“It worked,” Mr Fotheringay-Phipps said, and his face grew so distorted with consternation that I could not perceive whether he was pleased or dismayed.
I did not have time to ask him what he meant, as he proceeded to pour out the entire story at the slightly inquisitive look I gave him. I listened with great alacrity until the tale had progressed to the present moment.
“Then I am, in fact, Mr Wooster,” I said.
Mr Fotheringay-Phipps nodded. “Can you fix this, Jeeves?”
“I believe it not to be beyond my capacity, Mr Fotheringay-Phipps,” I said.
Mr Fotheringay-Phipps blinked at me with an utter lack of comprehension.
“Yes,” I said.
The wrinkles on Mr Fotheringay-Phipps’s face smoothed into a pleased expression. “Excellent, Jeeves! Will you need my help at all?”
“I should think not, sir,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Well,” Mr Fotheringay-Phipps said, backing toward the door, “then I’ll leave you to it.”
I stood before a mirror that I might peruse my new reflection and become accustomed to it before I faced the false “Mr Wooster” currently residing within my frame.
I found it exceedingly strange to see Mr Wooster’s reflection with my carefully impassive facial expression and equally careful movements. I attempted a smile, so Mr Wooster might look more like himself, but it was a cautious smile, and not the cheerfully optimistic, almost radiant smile Mr Wooster possesses.
I did not entirely approve of the burgundy vest Mr Wooster had chosen to wear today, so I removed it, replacing it with a more suitable vest of a grey-blue colour. I straightened, brushing lint from the shoulder of the vest, and then I entered the front room.
“Good afternoon, sir,” I said, standing in the doorway.
Mr Wooster did not appear from behind the racing form, but I could see that he was still clad in my working attire. “Jeeves! You know, it’s dashed peculiar. I was just talking to someone about…” He lowered the racing form, and I suppressed a wince at the almost comical look of surprise on my face. “Jeeves? Is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, with a slight nod.
“What are you doing in there?” Mr Wooster asked. “That is, er…”
“It is a long, complicated story, sir,” I said.
He seemed to notice his clothing for the first time. “I say, Jeeves, you seem to have loaned me your clothes.” He moved to unbutton my jacket, but was distracted by the sight of his fingers. “And your hands.”
I coughed politely. “Yes, sir.”
Mr Wooster looked at me, by now distinctly alarmed. “Well…well, what are we going to do, Jeeves? I can’t be a valet. I’ve no experience.”
“I hardly think that will be necessary, sir,” I said. “If you will allow me, sir, I should like to mesmerise you.”
“Will that help?” Mr Wooster asked.
“I believe so, sir.”
Mr Wooster nodded, his posture straightening as he prepared himself. “Go ahead, Jeeves.”
As I had suspected, Mr Fotheringay-Phipps had time to do very little in the way of what one might call post-hypnotic suggestion, and it was the work of a moment to erase the suggestions he had made and bring the other Jeeves to full consciousness.
He looked at me. “Sir?”
“In a manner of speaking, sir,” I said, with only a faint suggestion of a smile. Although he believed himself to be Jeeves, as indeed he was, I nevertheless felt I should continue to address him with respect.
The other Jeeves—the real Jeeves—looked at me, his eyebrows raised slightly. “It would not be remiss, sir, to state that you have been mesmerised?”
“It would not, sir,” I said. “Mr Wooster was sorely in need of my counsel, and Mr Fotheringay-Phipps agreed to convince him that he was me.”
“Very good, sir,” Jeeves said. “I am extremely grateful for your assistance in this matter.”
I inclined my head slightly.
“Shall I undo Mr Fotheringay-Phipps’s handiwork upon you, sir?” Jeeves asked.
“That would be a most convivial act, sir,” I said.
***
“Sir?”
I blinked, shaking my head to clear the fog away. Dashed peculiar feeling. “Jeeves? Are you quite yourself again?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeeves said. “Thank you, sir.”
“Has Barmy gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good. And you won’t have any more fits of Woosterism if I play middle C?”
“No, sir.”
I paused to think. I could dimly remember what had happened when I had thought I was Jeeves, but it was all muddled. “I think I rather liked being you, Jeeves—clever and sensible and all that.”
“Really, sir?” Jeeves said. “It would be possible for me to return you to that state.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, no. I was merely expressing a passing fancy, Jeeves, an idle whim.”
“Very good, sir,” Jeeves said.
I glanced down at myself and found that I was wearing different clothes than I’d been wearing earlier. “What happened to my burgundy vest, Jeeves?”
“I could not say, sir,” Jeeves said.
“You have a way of saying you could not say, Jeeves, that makes it sound as if you could say if you liked, but that you haven’t the slightest intention of saying.”
“I am sorry, sir. I shall try to curtail that form of expression in future.”
“See that you do,” I said. “Oh, and Jeeves?”
“Sir?”
I smiled broadly. “It’s good to have you back.”
One corner of his mouth quirked, which is the closest Jeeves comes to a smile. “Thank you, sir.”
THE END
AUTHOR: youofwales
FANDOM: Jeeves and Wooster
PAIRING: Generic fic
RATING: The faintest whiff of PG
SUMMARY: Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps has been practicing his mesmerism skills, much to Bertie's dismay.
NOTES: Cross-posted to fryandorlaurie.
DISCLAIMER: Jeeves and Wooster don't belong to me. They belong to P.G. Wodehouse. So please don't sue.
The first thing I saw upon my arrival at home was Jeeves sprawled in a most unusual manner on the Chesterfield. Barmy Fotheringay-Phipps was standing over him, looking highly triumphant.
“Barmy!” I squeaked, fumbling for the doorknob I’d just released. I was preparing to leg it while trying to look as if I’d never entertained the thought of legging it in my life.
He looked at me with his usual saturnine, lumpy expression. “Oh, hullo, Bertie.”
“It’s all very well to say ‘hullo,’” I said. “You haven’t just come home to discover that your man’s been…well…”
“What?” Barmy said. “Oh! No, Bertie, I haven’t done anything to harm Jeeves! Look—he’s still breathing!”
Much as I wanted to dart forward and ensure that Jeeves was still breathing, I was no fool. The moment the chappie in the murder mystery lets his guard down is the moment he gets biffed soundly on the head with the silver candlestick. “So you say.”
“His chest’s going up and down,” Barmy said.
This was true, so I took a cautious step forward. “Then what happened? Did he faint?”
“He’s in a trance.” Barmy looked unaccountably proud of himself. “I mesmerised him.”
“You did what?” I took hold of Jeeves’s shoulder, giving it a shake, but he did not awaken.
“Mesmerised him,” Barmy said. “It’s all the rage these days. You can make a chap do the silliest things!”
“Well, I don’t want Jeeves doing silly things,” I said. It unnerved me to think of Barmy muddling his way through Jeeves’s great brain and playing merry hell with the contents. “Wake him, please.”
Barmy looked disappointed. “But Bertie…”
“Confound it, Barmy, wake him this instant!”
Barmy snapped his fingers, and Jeeves blinked. He was standing before either of us had time to say anything.
“I apologize, sir,” Jeeves said. “I cannot imagine what happened.”
“I can,” I said, stepping forward and studying Jeeves. He looked all right to me. “Feeling all right, are you, Jeeves?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeeves said, looking nonplussed at my inquiry.
“Do you feel the urge to do anything silly?” I asked.
“No, sir.”
“You’re quite sure?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good,” I said. I seemed to have arrived at the flat just in time to prevent calamity.
Barmy had worked his way to the door, but he stood there for a moment, vacillating. “I’m sorry, Jeeves. I’m most awfully sorry.” He departed.
Jeeves turned to me. “To what is Mr Fotheringay-Phipps referring, sir?”
“He mesmerised you, Jeeves,” I said. “Dashed tricky business. I can’t say I know much about it.”
“Mesmerism, sir, as its name might suggest, originated with a man called Frederick Mesmer, although variations of his art have existed for thousands of years, particularly in India. It entails convincing a subject to relax to the extent that the subject becomes mentally pliable and willing to respond to the suggestions of the person in control of the process. I find it somewhat dispiriting that Mr Fotheringay-Phipps was attempting to perform such an act on me.”
“Well, you can stop worrying, Jeeves,” I said. “Thankfully, I arrived before he could plant any suggestions in your temporarily pliable brain.”
“Thank you, sir,” Jeeves said, looking uncommonly relieved.
I sat at the piano, glad that all had been suitably arranged, and pinged middle C as a prelude to my playing.
“I say!”
It took me a moment to realize that spirited exclamation had come from Jeeves. It took me several more moments to be able to work air into my lungs. I forced myself to turn and look at Jeeves.
“What ho,” I said cautiously.
Jeeves’s eyes grew wide and round to a degree I should have thought impossible. “It’s uncanny.”
“Uncanny?” I said.
Jeeves drew closer. “How much you look like me!” His voice had changed utterly; it seemed now to brim with vivacity. His joie was distinctly vivred—there could be no doubt about it.
“But I don’t look anything like you,” I said.
“You do, down to the slightest detail.” Jeeves shook his head in amazement. “They say everyone has a double in the world. I suppose you must be mine.”
I was beginning to feel somewhat uneasy about all this, but was unable to determine why. Jeeves was generally such an oasis of calm that it was dizzying to see him in such an animated state…but there was something more deeply disturbing about this, something I hadn’t yet unearthed.
“Wait until I tell Jeeves,” Jeeves said.
“Are…” My voice failed, and I swallowed hard, marshalling it round. “Aren’t you Jeeves?”
“Good Lord, no!” Jeeves said, looking amused. Then he wet his lips, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet and shoving his hands into his pockets.
Good Lord! I knew those mannerisms—the lip-wetting, the foot-rocking, and above all, the hand-pocketing. Jeeves wasn’t merely acting peculiar; he was acting like someone else.
He was acting like me.
“I say, J-Bertie,” I said, testing my theory, “do you know when Jeeves will be back?”
Jeeves shook his head, sprawling on the Chesterfield contentedly. “It’s difficult to say. Jeeves is a man enveloped in an enigma. He walks in mystery like the something-or-other.”
This was a blow. Jeeves could always be relied upon for his encyclopaedic knowledge of verse, and now he couldn’t even remember oft-quoted lines. I couldn’t either, of course, but Jeeves ought to be able to, even if he did think he was me.
I turned back to the piano, frowning. What had I done to bring on the change in Jeeves’s manner? Then I remembered, and with a contented smile, I pinged middle C with all the force I could muster.
That should, of course, have set things right, and it probably would have if I hadn’t struck the key quite so hard. However, I did strike the key hard, and the force of the hammer caused a loud snapping sound to emanate from inside the piano. The wire had broken. I was entirely without middle C.
“Bad luck, old chap!” Jeeves said sympathetically, still reclining. “Can you manage without that note, do you think?”
Needless to say, I had grievous doubts on that matter. How was I to find my way clear of this, other than the obvious method of hiring a piano tuner? Perhaps middle C was only the stimulus that made Jeeves think he was me, and would do nothing in the reverse direction.
It was no good, my going on like this. What I really needed was Jeeves, and although I had him, he would be no better at solving this dilemma than I would. But Jeeves wasn’t Jeeves, and I certainly wasn’t.
Just then, by the most enormous stroke of luck, I had one of the best thoughts one of the Wooster line has ever had—and we haven’t exactly been shirkers in that department.
I picked up the phone and rang Barmy.
***
Barmy hovered near the doorway, looking unwilling to come in. “Listen, Bertie, I apologised earlier.”
“Dash it, Barmy, I don’t care about that,” I said, catching him by the arm and secreting him toward the bedroom. Jeeves was perusing the latest racing form and did not see us pass.
“Now,” I said, once I had closed the bedroom door, “do to me whatever you did to Jeeves.”
“But you already think you’re you,” Barmy said, blinking at me.
“No, no, not that!” I said. “You see, I need Jeeves, but Jeeves cannot, at this moment, be Jeeves.”
“Right,” Barmy said with a nod.
“So I shall be Jeeves instead,” I said. “Mesmerise me and tell me that, when you bring me to full consciousness, I will become Jeeves and not myself.”
Barmy’s brow creased. “This is all a bit complicated.”
“Yes, well, you needn’t bother thinking it through. I already have,” I said. “Will you do it?”
Barmy nodded. “Look into my eyes.”
I did as he said, and found myself growing very relaxed. Very relaxed indeed. This was all rather pleasant, really.
***
I opened my eyes and found Mr Fotheringay-Phipps regarding me with a look of supreme hesitancy.
“Jeeves?” he said cautiously.
“Sir?” I said.
“It worked,” Mr Fotheringay-Phipps said, and his face grew so distorted with consternation that I could not perceive whether he was pleased or dismayed.
I did not have time to ask him what he meant, as he proceeded to pour out the entire story at the slightly inquisitive look I gave him. I listened with great alacrity until the tale had progressed to the present moment.
“Then I am, in fact, Mr Wooster,” I said.
Mr Fotheringay-Phipps nodded. “Can you fix this, Jeeves?”
“I believe it not to be beyond my capacity, Mr Fotheringay-Phipps,” I said.
Mr Fotheringay-Phipps blinked at me with an utter lack of comprehension.
“Yes,” I said.
The wrinkles on Mr Fotheringay-Phipps’s face smoothed into a pleased expression. “Excellent, Jeeves! Will you need my help at all?”
“I should think not, sir,” I said. “Thank you.”
“Well,” Mr Fotheringay-Phipps said, backing toward the door, “then I’ll leave you to it.”
I stood before a mirror that I might peruse my new reflection and become accustomed to it before I faced the false “Mr Wooster” currently residing within my frame.
I found it exceedingly strange to see Mr Wooster’s reflection with my carefully impassive facial expression and equally careful movements. I attempted a smile, so Mr Wooster might look more like himself, but it was a cautious smile, and not the cheerfully optimistic, almost radiant smile Mr Wooster possesses.
I did not entirely approve of the burgundy vest Mr Wooster had chosen to wear today, so I removed it, replacing it with a more suitable vest of a grey-blue colour. I straightened, brushing lint from the shoulder of the vest, and then I entered the front room.
“Good afternoon, sir,” I said, standing in the doorway.
Mr Wooster did not appear from behind the racing form, but I could see that he was still clad in my working attire. “Jeeves! You know, it’s dashed peculiar. I was just talking to someone about…” He lowered the racing form, and I suppressed a wince at the almost comical look of surprise on my face. “Jeeves? Is that you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, with a slight nod.
“What are you doing in there?” Mr Wooster asked. “That is, er…”
“It is a long, complicated story, sir,” I said.
He seemed to notice his clothing for the first time. “I say, Jeeves, you seem to have loaned me your clothes.” He moved to unbutton my jacket, but was distracted by the sight of his fingers. “And your hands.”
I coughed politely. “Yes, sir.”
Mr Wooster looked at me, by now distinctly alarmed. “Well…well, what are we going to do, Jeeves? I can’t be a valet. I’ve no experience.”
“I hardly think that will be necessary, sir,” I said. “If you will allow me, sir, I should like to mesmerise you.”
“Will that help?” Mr Wooster asked.
“I believe so, sir.”
Mr Wooster nodded, his posture straightening as he prepared himself. “Go ahead, Jeeves.”
As I had suspected, Mr Fotheringay-Phipps had time to do very little in the way of what one might call post-hypnotic suggestion, and it was the work of a moment to erase the suggestions he had made and bring the other Jeeves to full consciousness.
He looked at me. “Sir?”
“In a manner of speaking, sir,” I said, with only a faint suggestion of a smile. Although he believed himself to be Jeeves, as indeed he was, I nevertheless felt I should continue to address him with respect.
The other Jeeves—the real Jeeves—looked at me, his eyebrows raised slightly. “It would not be remiss, sir, to state that you have been mesmerised?”
“It would not, sir,” I said. “Mr Wooster was sorely in need of my counsel, and Mr Fotheringay-Phipps agreed to convince him that he was me.”
“Very good, sir,” Jeeves said. “I am extremely grateful for your assistance in this matter.”
I inclined my head slightly.
“Shall I undo Mr Fotheringay-Phipps’s handiwork upon you, sir?” Jeeves asked.
“That would be a most convivial act, sir,” I said.
***
“Sir?”
I blinked, shaking my head to clear the fog away. Dashed peculiar feeling. “Jeeves? Are you quite yourself again?”
“Yes, sir,” Jeeves said. “Thank you, sir.”
“Has Barmy gone?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. Good. And you won’t have any more fits of Woosterism if I play middle C?”
“No, sir.”
I paused to think. I could dimly remember what had happened when I had thought I was Jeeves, but it was all muddled. “I think I rather liked being you, Jeeves—clever and sensible and all that.”
“Really, sir?” Jeeves said. “It would be possible for me to return you to that state.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “No, no. I was merely expressing a passing fancy, Jeeves, an idle whim.”
“Very good, sir,” Jeeves said.
I glanced down at myself and found that I was wearing different clothes than I’d been wearing earlier. “What happened to my burgundy vest, Jeeves?”
“I could not say, sir,” Jeeves said.
“You have a way of saying you could not say, Jeeves, that makes it sound as if you could say if you liked, but that you haven’t the slightest intention of saying.”
“I am sorry, sir. I shall try to curtail that form of expression in future.”
“See that you do,” I said. “Oh, and Jeeves?”
“Sir?”
I smiled broadly. “It’s good to have you back.”
One corner of his mouth quirked, which is the closest Jeeves comes to a smile. “Thank you, sir.”
THE END
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 05:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 05:09 pm (UTC)“You have a way of saying you could not say, Jeeves, that makes it sound as if you could say if you liked, but that you haven’t the slightest intention of saying.”
Such a Wooster thing to say. :)
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 05:55 pm (UTC)“I think I rather liked being you, Jeeves—clever and sensible and all that.”
Lord, who wouldn't like being Jeeves? :-)
A very enjoyable story!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 07:17 pm (UTC)I love the idea that both of them can be the other. "Fits of Woosterism," forsooth. XD
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 08:08 pm (UTC)Two people 'Sir-ing' in a conversation was priceless, and 'Wooster-ism' too.
Keep writing,
-K
no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-08 09:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 01:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 01:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 08:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-09 09:02 pm (UTC)“You have a way of saying you could not say, Jeeves, that makes it sound as if you could say if you liked, but that you haven’t the slightest intention of saying.”
Good job, thanks for sharing!
no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:31 am (UTC)Such a Wooster thing to say. :)
I love Bertie's verbal circuitousness. :)
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Date: 2006-06-11 01:33 am (UTC)Lord, who wouldn't like being Jeeves? :-)
I can't think of anyone off-hand. :) And thanks again!
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Date: 2006-06-11 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:36 am (UTC)And thank you for providing that RP entry for me--it made me laugh! Bertie-as-Jeeves and Jeeves-as-Bertie are both very well done. :)
I assume that Jeeves would make a better Bertie than Bertie would make Jeeves, but if hypnotised, maybe it wouldn't make any difference. :)
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Date: 2006-06-11 01:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:43 am (UTC)I pictured Barmy saying something akin to "Jeeves, do I have something in my eye?", and Jeeves being mesmerised before he knew what was happening. Although I agree that stretches credibility, because Jeeves always knows what is happening. :)
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Date: 2006-06-11 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 01:44 am (UTC)That line is one of my favourites too. :)
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Date: 2006-06-11 09:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-11 10:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-27 10:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-01 02:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-09-12 07:44 pm (UTC)I love slash, but I also love a good genfic, and hopefully this will encourage other people to try their hands at it. One can't always have a slash bunny at one's fingertips. :-)
Thanks for writing and posting -- so much fun!
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Date: 2008-05-31 12:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-05-31 03:58 am (UTC)This is doubly delightsome because I have been reading Wodehouse recently, and so it's all very fresh in my mind. You did a great job with the style - and it's a hilarious story! Great work!
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Date: 2008-05-31 11:06 am (UTC)here via <lj user="crack_van">
Date: 2008-05-31 12:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-24 02:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-08 09:24 am (UTC)