Этот неподражаемый Дживс! / The Inimitable Jeeves

Never before had I encountered such a curate. He certainly appeared to be a real daredevil; and I wished he had shown me this side of his character before.

“That Colonel Musgrave,” he went on, “is not a man who would be likely to overlook the matter. He is a hard man. He will expose me to the priest. The priest is a hard man, too. In short, Mr Wooster, if Colonel Musgrave presents that cheque, I shall be ruined. And he leaves for England tonight.”

The girl, who had been standing by biting her handkerchief, now wept.

“Mr Wooster,” she cried, “won’t you, won’t you help us? Oh, do say you will! We must have the money to get back the cheque from Colonel Musgrave before nine o’clock—he leaves on the nine-twenty. I remembered how kind you had always been. Mr Wooster, will you lend Sidney the money and take these as security?”

And before I knew what she was doing she had dived into her bag, taken a case, and opened it.

“My pearls,” she said.

“Now, alas, no more—” said her the brother.

“But I know they must be worth ever so much more than the amount we want.”

It was embarrassing. It made me feel like a pawnbroker.

“No, I say, really,” I protested. “There’s no need of any security, you know. Only too glad to let you have the money. I’ve got it on me, as a matter of fact. Rather luckily drew some this morning.

And I took the money out of my pocket and laid it on the table. The brother shook his head.

“Mr Wooster,” he said, “we appreciate your generosity, your confidence in us, but we cannot permit this.”

“What Sidney means,” said the girl, “is that you really don’t know anything about us. You mustn’t risk lending all this money without any security at all to two people who, after all, are almost strangers. If I hadn’t thought that you would treat it like some business I would never have dared to come to you.

“The idea of—er—pledging the pearls at the local pawnbroker shop was, you will readily understand, repugnant to us,” said the brother.

“If you will just give me a receipt, as a matter of form[70 - as a matter of form – соблюдая формальности]—”

“All right!”

I wrote out the receipt and handed it over.

“Here you are,” I said.