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malignity of Fate that he should have selected for a
formal father-in-lawful call the moment when his daughter-in-law
was taking a bath.
    He approached the door, and spoke soothingly.
    'Pray do not be alarmed, my dear.'
    'Who are you? What are you doing in my room?'
    'There is no cause for alarm—'
    He broke off abruptly, for his words had suddenly been
proved fundamentally untrue. There was very vital cause for
alarm. The door of the bedroom had opened, and the muff-like
dog, shrilling hate, was scuttling in its peculiar legless
manner straight for his ankles.
    Peril brings out unsuspected qualities in every man. Lord
Emsworth was not a professional acrobat, but the leap he gave
in this crisis would have justified his being mistaken for one. He
floated through the air like a homing bird. From where he had
been standing the bed was a considerable distance away but he
reached it with inches to spare, and stood there, quivering.
Below him, the woolly dog raged like the ocean at the base of
a cliff.
    It was at this point that his lordship became aware of a young
woman standing in the doorway through which he had just
passed.
    About this young woman there were many points which
would have found little favour in the eyes of a critic of feminine
charm. She was too short, too square, and too solid. She had a
much too determined chin. And her hair was of an unpleasing
gingery hue. But the thing Lord Emsworth liked least about her
was the pistol she was pointing at his head.
    A plaintive voice filtered through the bathroom door.
    'Who's there?'
    'It's a man,' said the girl behind the gun.
    'I know it's a man. He spoke to me. Who is he?'
    'I don't know. A nasty-looking fellow. I saw him hanging
about the passage outside your door, and I got my gun and came
along. Come on out.'
    'I can't. I'm all wet.'
    It is not easy for a man who is standing on a bed with his
hands up to achieve dignity, but Lord Emsworth did the best he
could.
    'My dear madam!'
    'What are you doing here?'
    'I found the door ajar—'
    'And walked in to see if there were any jewel-cases ajar, too.
I think,' added the young woman, raising her voice so as to make
herself audible to the unseen bather, 'it's Dopey Smith.'
    'Who?'
    'Dopey Smith. The fellow the cops said tried for your jewels
in New York. He must have followed you over here.'
    'I am not Dopey Smith, madam,' cried his lordship. 'I am the
Earl of Emsworth.'
    'You are?'
    'Yes, I am.'
    'Yes, you are!'
    'I came to see my daughter-in-law.'
    'Well, here she is.'
    The bathroom door opened, and there emerged a charming
figure draped in a kimono. Even in that tense moment Lord
Emsworth was conscious of a bewildered astonishment that such
a girl could ever have stooped to mate with his son Frederick.
    'Who did you say he was?' she asked, recommending herself
still more strongly to his lordship's esteem by scooping up the
woolly dog and holding it securely in her arms.
    'He says he's the Earl of Emsworth.'
    'I am the Earl of Emsworth.'
    The girl in the kimono looked keenly at him as he descended
from the bed.
    'You know, Jane,' she said, a note of uncertainty in her voice,
'it might be. He looks very like Freddie.'
    The appalling slur on his personal appearance held Lord
Emsworth dumb. Like other men, he had had black moments
when his looks had not altogether satisfied him, but he had
never supposed that he had a face like Freddie's.
    The girl with the pistol uttered a stupefying whoop.
    'Jiminy Christmas!' she cried. 'Don't you see?'
    'See what?'
    'Why, it is Freddie. Disguised. Trying to get at you this way.
It's just the sort of movie stunt he would think clever. Take them
off, Ralph Vandeleur – I know you!'
    She reached out a clutching hand, seized his lordship's beard
in a vice-like grip, and tugged with all the force of a modern girl,
trained from infancy at hockey, tennis and Swedish exercises.
    It had not occurred to Lord Emsworth a moment before that
anything could possibly tend to make his situation more