Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Carry On, Jeeves
    Carry On, Jeeves
    Carry On, Jeeves
    Ebook288 pages4 hours

    Carry On, Jeeves

    By P. G. Wodehouse

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to audiobook
    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Ten classic short stories by author and humorist P. G. Wodehouse tell the amusing antics and occasional mishaps of young gentleman Bertie Wooster, who regularly relies on the infinite wisdom of his consummate valet, Jeeves, for help. Lighthearted and delightful to read, these stories include some of the most popular from the Jeeves canon: “Jeeves Takes Charge,” in which Bertie and Jeeves first meet, and “Bertie Changes His Mind,” the only story told from Jeeves’s point of view.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateFeb 16, 2022
    ISBN9780486850672
    Author

    P. G. Wodehouse

    P. G. Wodehouse was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the twentieth century.

    Read more from P. G. Wodehouse

    Related to Carry On, Jeeves

    Related ebooks

    Humor & Satire For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      Fizzing With Delight

      Feb 14, 2021

      Fizzing With Delight
      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The 40 Greatest Books To Read Before You Die

      Apr 25, 2021

      Books, books, books. They will increase your lifespan, lower your stress and boost your intelligence. They will give you fuller, thicker hair. Whatever the breathless claims about reading, one thing is certain: losing yourself in a great novel is one

      14 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Cosplaying Jane Austen

      Jul 22, 2017

      Cosplaying Jane Austen
      7 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      I REMEMBER… Barry Humphries

      Mar 15, 2022

      I REMEMBER… Barry Humphries
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Tracy Chevalier

      Aug 29, 2019

      Tracy Chevalier
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Way She Was

      Nov 17, 2023

      The Way She Was
      15 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Readers’ Letters

      Feb 9, 2022

      The Oldie, 23-31 Great Titchfield Street, London, W1W 7PA letters@theoldie.co.uk To sign up for our e-newsletter, go to www.theoldie.co.uk SIR: Like Gyles Brandreth, my husband and I are great fans of Bargain Hunt. As well as enjoying the banter betw

      6 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Venice Peach

      Oct 2, 2023

      1. THE DRESSMAKER AND THE HIDDEN SOLDIER by Doug Gold (A&U) WWII thriller about Kiwi soldier and Greek dressmaker 2. SUMMER FAVOURITES by Vanya Insull (A&U) Recipes from @vj_cooks 3. TE REO KAPEKAPE: Māori Wit and Humour by Hona Black (Oratia) Having

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Richard Holmes

      Dec 15, 2017

      Richard Holmes
      25 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      It Happened to Me…

      Aug 8, 2024

      It Happened to Me…
      12 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      House of Glass

      Mar 3, 2020

      House of Glass
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      “Phallus in Wonderland” 1 : Role Plays with Joyce Wieland

      Jun 4, 2018

      After gently pouring tea into each of our cups, Phyllis Lambert pushes a plate of delicate accompaniments arranged for our meeting in my direction. A shortbread cookie seems mess-free, so I take a few bites even though it is fairly small in size. I d

      18 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Guest-edited by Kim Jones

      Mar 26, 2021

      Guest-edited by Kim Jones
      8 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Bob Monkhouse Guide to Orgies

      Feb 7, 2024

      Well done, King Charles, for making us all more prostate-aware. I have been personally prostate-conscious for many years, thanks to one of the kings of comedy, the late, great Bob Monkhouse, who died of prostate cancer, aged 75, in December 1973. Bob

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Music

      Sep 21, 2022

      AN INVENTORY Jonathan Cape, 368pp, £20 Caroline Sullivan in the Guardian said the book ‘ambles through 25 years, tracking Cocker’s worldview as it takes shape in his home city of Sheffield. It opens in the present day, as he’s clearing out the loft o

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Shelf Life

      Dec 2, 2021

      Shelf Life
      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Mandy Robotham

      Dec 5, 2024

      My favourites sit on my shelf alongside my own little library of eight – soon to be nine – novels, though I consider myself in a different league as a ‘jobbing writer’. As such, I usually have two books on the go at any one time, sometimes three if y

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Quixotic Cringe of ‘The Red-Headed Pilgrim’

      Apr 13, 2023

      If you’re cringing, that’s the point. The post The Quixotic Cringe of ‘The Red-Headed Pilgrim’ appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Jane Austen Trivia

      Mar 26, 2020

      Who knew that Jane brewed her own beer? In a letter to her sister Cassandra in January 1800, Jane told her, “We are brewing spruce beer again.” During this period, brewing was a traditional chore for women because water was often contaminated and it

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Radio Valerie Grove

      Sep 22, 2021

      In just over a year’s time, the BBC will celebrate its centenary. On 14th November 1922 the first broadcast was aired, carrying into our homes ‘all that is best in human knowledge, endeavour and achievement’. The dwindling cohort of radio hacks will

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Art of Poetry No. 111

      Sep 6, 2022

      The Art of Poetry No. 111
      26 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hogwash!

      May 17, 2021

      Hogwash!
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Hogwash!

      May 17, 2021

      Hogwash!
      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Subscribers’ News

      Jul 4, 2024

      Just wanted to pat myself on the back for finally finding a publisher for my pet project: a book about Essex Authors (Famous Essex Authors writes subscriber Dee Gordon. Although I have had seventeen non fiction books published (mostly local history a

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Dear Tom And Paul

      Jan 8, 2021

      Dear Tom And Paul
      9 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Casa Wooster

      Mar 10, 2020

      Casa Wooster
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Carry On, Jeeves

    4/5

    834 ratings44 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Wodehouse's stories seem sort of slight when I read them, even though I've enjoyed seeing them fleshed out on television.
    • 4/5
      (Because the books in this series have been republished so many times and I'm reading mismatched editions, I'm adding my own generic but matching fan art covers to my reviews. Yay!)

      After hearing Wodehouse's name in the wind for probably decades, I read this author of classic humor for the first time with My Man Jeeves, featuring Bertie Wooster and his iconic valet Jeeves, along with stories about an early Wooster prototype, Reggie Pepper. Not at all a bad intro to the author for me.

      Then I heard tell that revised versions of those Jeeves stories are in this later collection, Carry On, Jeeves.

      Well. Maybe it's because I'm still getting started with this author, but aside from a bit of story retitling and one Pepper episode rewritten as a Wooster one, I didn't notice any other revisions of the few tales I'd already read.

      Enjoyed the reading anyway, though. And I liked that a joke that was particularly not to my taste in the formerly Pepper story is left out of the Wooster rewrite.

      The author's way with language is upbeat and quirkily clever, like sketches of word caricatures. Jeeves and Wooster's tiffs are so delightfully quaint and comic, and I catch on to most of the old-fashioned English slang through context. Now, the few newer stories here I hadn't read before add a little more mild "language" (nothing that would get bleeped off of regular network television), and one of the tales has a reference to deaf people that I wouldn't have used.

      But in general, as I passed the time with the hijinks in these pages, it occurred to me how rarely I've had chances as an adult to indulge in comedy reading purely for entertainment. Comedy that's comfortable for me—"PG" but not juvenile.

      I often recharge my battery with classic sitcoms. I guess my reading life could use more of that type of relaxration and recharging too. Don't mind if I do partake of some more of the Wooster and Jeeves series.
    • 4/5
      One of the funniest Wodehouse books I've read. Bertie's self-deprecation is charming, and Jeeves must be one of the smartest men on earth. This book is a series of short stories about Jeeves rescuing Bertie's friends, and it was getting formulaic. But Wodehouse cleverly changed the perspective in the last chapter to tell it from Jeeves' perspective. How he orchestrated Bertie's change of mind makes you wonder what else has he done.
    • 4/5
      This was a lot of fun, and the final read-along in the San Diego Public Library's online series as branches are now open and fully in business again.
    • 4/5
      Carry on Jeeves is a collection of early Jeeves and Wooster short stories, although not really the best of them. (Partly because several of these are reworked versions of the very early stories, published in a collection titled My Man Jeeves.)

      They're entertaining little gems, although I think Jeeves works best in novel format. I recommend the omnibus The World of Jeeves (also available in Arrow) which collects all the stories in an especially savvy narrative order.
    • 5/5
      Surprisingly, this novel was fun and had me laughing out loud at many instances. Of course, one would expect that from Wodehouse but I had become jaded after binge reading. This novel, actually, a short story collection, follows by now standard flow of one of Bertie's friend, and hence Bertie, getting into trouble and Jeeves rising to rescue them, often in series of convenient coincidences. However, this time I paid attention to choice of words and I have to admit, this guy has really knack for writing staggeringly odd and humourous prose. Last short story, told from Jeeve's point of view, as a surprising delight.
    • 4/5
      Quite funny and amusing tongue-in-cheek piss-take of the upper middle classes of the time. Stories get a bit repetitive after awhile but are always entertaining. I recommend it as a good book to read while drunk. It all seems a lot funnier.
    • 5/5
      Where would Bertie be without his faithful valet Jeeves? Such an unthinkable existence is too horrible to even contemplate! In this continuing saga, the unflappable Jeeves is always there to rescue the clueless Bertie, and the problems in our lives are momentarily quite forgotten in the mirthful escapades these two concoct. Well done, Jeeves, you’ve done it again!
    • 4/5
      Rereading an old favourite. Wodehouse's humour is great. Familiar plots, batty characters and humour suburbly expressed.
    • 4/5
      Ten short stories about Bertie Wooster and his wise valet, Jeeves. I've read many of the books from this series, but had somehow missed this one. I loved seeing the first meeting between the two. The rest of the stories all have a similar theme, Bertie manages to get himself into a pickle, the brilliant Jeeves manages to get him out of it. But they are fun to read and Bertie's oblivious nature and Jeeves' patient condescension always make me laugh. You know what you'll get when you read Wodehouse's books on Jeeves and you're never disappointed.
    • 4/5
      Well, again, not a novel. A loosely strung together (very loosely) collection of short stories. The first one recounts Jeeves first coming into Bertie's life, so that one was interesting. And the last one is from Jeeves' point of view, so that's interesting as well.A great number of them were ones I'd previously read (already!) But that was okay. I could skip them. And that made the book that much quicker to read.Can't keep track of any sort of timeline though. First he's in London then he's in America, then he's in London. Can't keep all the hapless friends straight either. Not sure if I'm meant to.
    • 5/5
      More of the usual silliness of Bertie and friends. The best story is the last one, told from the Jeeves point of view. The audiobook was hysterical!
    • 5/5
      Includes a story told by Jeeves about Mr. Wooster.
    • 5/5
      Very funny, clever, witty. Greg and I listened to Stories 1, 2, 3 - one per side of a cassette. Read by Martin Jarvis. lol
    • 4/5
      A fun book, but the repetition of plots started to grate on my nerves--the constant "Jeeves, find a way out of this situation without offending this aunt!" got a little stale for me. Despite this, it remained entertaining, mostly because (in my head) Wooster sounds like Graham Chapman, and nearly all of his bumbling friends were voiced by Eric Idle. I may, in fact, have cast the whole book from Monty Python.
    • 5/5
      What can I say, I love Wodehouse!
    • 4/5
      Carry on, Jeeves is a series of stories about how Jeeves acts as man-servant while repeatedly saving the day for Bertram Wooster. Each chapter sets up a different dilemma "Bertie" and/or his friends face and how Jeeves cleverly resolves every one of those dilemmas. There is a formula to these moments of crisis: someone is usually misleading a family member (usually an aunt) to think he is wealthy, in another part of the country, worth marrying, not worth marrying, etc. Jeeves's solution is to mislead the "aunt" with a lie or two. The lie is the smallest of gestures and usually something humorous happens - like the plan backfiring. While the general plot seems repetitious, Wodehouse's style of writing is very funny. Side note: Bertie and Jeeves always seem to get into curious arguments about fashion.
    • 3/5
      I picked this up because I felt like I ought to read some Wodehouse. I'm not at all sad I did, although the humor didn't really do all that much for me. It's a neat little picture of a certain social class in a certain time, though, and remains excellent light reading.
    • 3/5
      Somewhat humorous. I guess because I'm thoroughly American, I cannot identify with the problems of a wealthy single man and his butler. Still, it was entertaining.
    • 4/5


      What a hoot. So nice to be reintroduced to Mr. Wodehouse.
    • 5/5
      A collection of short stories featuring Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, including the only one told from Jeeves' perspective.
    • 5/5
      very funny, lol
    • 5/5
      n which Jeeves makes his appearance as new valet to Bertie Wooster. First published in 1925 and still a delight after all those years.
    • 4/5
      Lovely, light-hearted fun. Bertie is such a charming narrator: always clustering around his pals when they are in a bit of a rummy situation. The final chapter is narrated by Jeeves, and this for me, is the only draw back of this collection of short stories. Jeeves is revealed in this chapter to be quite a Lot more manipulative and self-serving than he appears to be in stories narrated by Wooster.
    • 5/5
      Good old-fashioned fun from the pen of a comic genius.
    • 2/5
      Wodehouse and I do not agree about comedy. There is very little in this book to amuse, and less to inform. One is much better off to read Goon Show Scripts.
    • 4/5
      I'd give this five stars but you have to leave some space for brilliance, don't you know.

      I had a Wodehouse orgy a few years ago, read a lot of his stuff on the bus (poor location - your laughing in public will have other commuters proceed to stare at you as if somehow you were contagious) and then stopped. Well, I DON'T KNOW WHY. I love him. What a riot this book was. This is basically Bertie being his usual obnoxious self with Jeeves coming up with wonderful ideas to get him out of tricky situations. It's hilarious throughout. In one of the stories, a woman pays a young man to live the good life in New York provided she can live vicariously through his letters - oh how I would have loved for that to happen to me!

      Wodehouse's world is a microcosm in which eccentricity is the default, and keep in mind that these characters are barely caricatures.

      Pure indulgence. I regret nothing, this is a treat.
    • 5/5
      Most of the stories are pretty much the same, but they're all wonderful.
    • 5/5
      I love Jeeves and Wooster, superb.
    • 5/5
      A guaranteed cure for depression.

    Book preview

    Carry On, Jeeves - P. G. Wodehouse

    Jeeves Takes Charge

    NOW, TOUCHING THIS business of old Jeeves—my man, you know—how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well, what I say is: Why not? The man’s a genius. From the collar upward he stands alone. I gave up trying to run my own affairs within a week of his coming to me. That was about half a dozen years ago, directly after the rather rummy business of Florence Craye, my Uncle Willoughby’s book, and Edwin, the Boy Scout.

    The thing really began when I got back to Easeby, my uncle’s place in Shropshire. I was spending a week or so there, as I generally did in the summer; and I had had to break my visit to come back to London to get a new valet. I had found Meadowes, the fellow I had taken to Easeby with me, sneaking my silk socks, a thing no bloke of spirit could stick at any price. It transpiring, moreover, that he had looted a lot of other things here and there about the place, I was reluctantly compelled to hand the misguided blighter the mitten and go to London to ask the registry office to dig up another specimen for my approval. They sent me Jeeves.

    I shall always remember the morning he came. It so happened that the night before I had been present at a rather cheery little supper, and I was feeling pretty rocky. On top of this I was trying to read a book Florence Craye had given me. She had been one of the house-party at Easeby, and two or three days before I left we had got engaged. I was due back at the end of the week, and I knew she would expect me to have finished the book by then. You see, she was particularly keen on boosting me up a bit nearer her own plane of intellect. She was a girl with a wonderful profile, but steeped to the gills in serious purpose. I can’t give you a better idea of the way things stood than by telling you that the book she’d given me to read was called Types of Ethical Theory, and that when I opened it at random I struck a page beginning:—

    The postulate or common understanding involved in speech is certainly co-extensive, in the obligation it carries, with the social organism of which language is the instrument, and the ends of which it is an effort to subserve.

    All perfectly true, no doubt; but not the sort of thing to spring on a lad with a morning head.

    I was doing my best to skim through this bright little volume when the bell rang. I crawled off the sofa and opened the door. A kind of darkish sort of respectful Johnnie stood without.

    I was sent by the agency, sir, he said. I was given to understand that you required a valet.

    I’d have preferred an undertaker; but I told him to stagger in, and he floated noiselessly through the doorway like a healing zephyr. That impressed me from the start. Meadowes had had flat feet and used to clump. This fellow didn’t seem to have any feet at all. He just streamed in. He had a grave, sympathetic face, as if he, too, knew what it was to sup with the lads.

    Excuse me, sir, he said gently.

    Then he seemed to flicker, and wasn’t there any longer. I heard him moving about in the kitchen, and presently he came back with a glass on a tray.

    If you would drink this, sir, he said, with a kind of bedside manner, rather like the royal doctor shooting the bracer into the sick prince. It is a little preparation of my own invention. It is the Worcester Sauce that gives it its colour. The raw egg makes it nutritious. The red pepper gives it its bite. Gentlemen have told me they have found it extremely invigorating after a late evening.

    I would have clutched at anything that looked like a life-line that morning. I swallowed the stuff. For a moment I felt as if somebody had touched off a bomb inside the old bean and was strolling down my throat with a lighted torch, and then everything seemed suddenly to get all right. The sun shone in through the window; birds twittered in the tree-tops; and, generally speaking, hope dawned once more.

    You’re engaged! I said, as soon as I could say anything.

    I perceived clearly that this cove was one of the world’s workers, the sort no home should be without.

    Thank you, sir. My name is Jeeves.

    You can start in at once?

    Immediately, sir.

    Because I’m due down at Easeby, in Shropshire, the day after tomorrow.

    Very good, sir. He looked past me at the mantelpiece. That is an excellent likeness of Lady Florence Craye, sir. It is two years since I saw her ladyship. I was at one time in Lord Worplesdon’s employment. I tendered my resignation because I could not see eye to eye with his lordship in his desire to dine in dress trousers, a flannel shirt, and a shooting coat.

    He couldn’t tell me anything I didn’t know about the old boy’s eccentricity. This Lord Worplesdon was Florence’s father. He was the old buster who, a few years later, came down to breakfast one morning, lifted the first cover he saw, said Eggs! Eggs! Eggs! Damn all eggs! in an overwrought sort of voice, and instantly legged it for France, never to return to the bosom of his family. This, mind you, being a bit of luck for the bosom of the family, for old Worplesdon had the worst temper in the county.

    I had known the family ever since I was a kid, and from boyhood up this old boy had put the fear of death into me. Time, the great healer, could never remove from my memory the occasion when he found me—then a stripling of fifteen—smoking one of his special cigars in the stables. He got after me with a hunting-crop just at the moment when I was beginning to realise that what I wanted most on earth was solitude and repose, and chased me more than a mile across difficult country. If there was a flaw, so to speak, in the pure joy of being engaged to Florence, it was the fact that she rather took after her father, and one was never certain when she might erupt. She had a wonderful profile, though.

    Lady Florence and I are engaged, Jeeves, I said.

    Indeed, sir?

    You know, there was a kind of rummy something about his manner. Perfectly all right and all that, but not what you’d call chirpy. It somehow gave me the impression that he wasn’t keen on Florence. Well, of course, it wasn’t my business. I supposed that while he had been valeting old Worplesdon she must have trodden on his toes in some way. Florence was a dear girl, and, seen sideways, most awfully good-looking; but if she had a fault it was a tendency to be a bit imperious with the domestic staff.

    At this point in the proceedings there was another ring at the front door. Jeeves shimmered out and came back with a telegram. I opened it. It ran:

    Return immediately. Extremely urgent. Catch first train. Florence.

    Rum! I said.

    Sir?

    Oh, nothing!

    It shows how little I knew Jeeves in those days that I didn’t go a bit deeper into the matter with him. Nowadays I would never dream of reading a rummy communication without asking him what he thought of it. And this one was devilish odd. What I mean is, Florence knew I was going back to Easeby the day after tomorrow, anyway; so why the hurry call? Something must have happened, of course; but I couldn’t see what on earth it could be.

    Jeeves, I said, we shall be going down to Easeby this afternoon. Can you manage it?

    Certainly, sir.

    You can get your packing done and all that?

    Without any difficulty, sir. Which suit will you wear for the journey?

    This one.

    I had on a rather sprightly young check that morning, to which I was a good deal attached; I fancied it, in fact, more than a little. It was perhaps rather sudden till you got used to it, but, nevertheless, an extremely sound effort, which many lads at the club and elsewhere had admired unrestrainedly.

    Very good, sir.

    Again there was that kind of rummy something in his manner. It was the way he said it, don’t you know. He didn’t like the suit. I pulled myself together to assert myself. Something seemed to tell me that, unless I was jolly careful and nipped this lad in the bud, he would be starting to boss me. He had the aspect of a distinctly resolute blighter.

    Well, I wasn’t going to have any of that sort of thing, by Jove! I’d seen so many cases of fellows who had become perfect slaves to their valets. I remember poor old Aubrey Fothergill telling me—with absolute tears in his eyes, poor chap!—one night at the club, that he had been compelled to give up a favourite pair of brown shoes simply because Meekyn, his man, disapproved of them. You have to keep these fellows in their place, don’t you know. You have to work the good old iron-hand-in-the-velvet-glove wheeze. If you give them a what’s-its-name, they take a thingummy.

    Don’t you like this suit, Jeeves? I said coldly.

    Oh, yes, sir.

    Well, what don’t you like about it?

    It is a very nice suit, sir.

    Well, what’s wrong with it? Out with it, dash it!

    If I might make the suggestion, sir, a simple brown or blue, with a hint of some quiet twill——

    What absolute rot!

    Very good, sir.

    Perfectly blithering, my dear man!

    As you say, sir.

    I felt as if I had stepped on the place where the last stair ought to have been, but wasn’t. I felt defiant, if you know what I mean, and there didn’t seem anything to defy.

    All right, then, I said.

    Yes, sir.

    And then he went away to collect his kit, while I started in again on Types of Ethical Theory and took a stab at a chapter headed Idiopsychological Ethics.

    Most of the way down in the train that afternoon, I was wondering what could be up at the other end. I simply couldn’t see what could have happened. Easeby wasn’t one of those country houses you read about in the society novels, where young girls are lured on to play baccarat and then skinned to the bone of their jewellery, and so on. The house-party I had left had consisted entirely of law-abiding birds like myself.

    Besides, my uncle wouldn’t have let anything of that kind go on in his house. He was a rather stiff, precise sort of old boy, who liked a quiet life. He was just finishing a history of the family or something, which he had been working on for the last year, and didn’t stir much from the library. He was rather a good instance of what they say about its being a good scheme for a fellow to sow his wild oats. I’d been told that in his youth Uncle Willoughby had been a bit of a rounder. You would never have thought it to look at him now.

    When I got to the house, Oakshott, the butler, told me that Florence was in her room, watching her maid pack. Apparently there was a dance on at a house about twenty miles away that night, and she was motoring over with some of the Easeby lot and would be away some nights. Oakshott said she had told him to tell her the moment I arrived; so I trickled into the smoking-room and waited, and presently in she came. A glance showed me that she was perturbed, and even peeved. Her eyes had a goggly look, and altogether she appeared considerably pipped.

    Darling! I said, and attempted the good old embrace; but she side-stepped like a bantam weight.

    Don’t!

    What’s the matter?

    Everything’s the matter! Bertie, you remember asking me, when you left, to make myself pleasant to your uncle?

    Yes.

    The idea being, of course, that as at that time I was more or less dependent on Uncle Willoughby I couldn’t very well marry without his approval. And though I knew he wouldn’t have any objection to Florence, having known her father since they were at Oxford together, I hadn’t wanted to take any chances; so I had told her to make an effort to fascinate the old boy.

    You told me it would please him particularly if I asked him to read me some of his history of the family.

    Wasn’t he pleased?

    He was delighted. He finished writing the thing yesterday afternoon, and read me nearly all of it last night. I have never had such a shock in my life. The book is an outrage. It is impossible. It is horrible!

    But, dash it, the family weren’t so bad as all that.

    It is not a history of the family at all. Your uncle has written his reminiscences! He calls them ‘Recollections of a Long Life’!

    I began to understand. As I say, Uncle Willoughby had been somewhat on the tabasco side as a young man, and it began to look as if he might have turned out something pretty fruity if he had started recollecting his long life.

    If half of what he has written is true, said Florence, your uncle’s youth must have been perfectly appalling. The moment we began to read he plunged straight into a most scandalous story of how he and my father were thrown out of a music-hall in 1887!

    Why?

    I decline to tell you why.

    It must have been something pretty bad. It took a lot to make them chuck people out of music-halls in 1887.

    Your uncle specifically states that father had drunk a quart and a half of champagne before beginning the evening, she went on. The book is full of stories like that. There is a dreadful one about Lord Emsworth.

    Lord Emsworth? Not the one we know? Not the one at Blandings?

    A most respectable old Johnnie, don’t you know. Doesn’t do a thing nowadays but dig in the garden with a spud.

    The very same. That is what makes the book so unspeakable. It is full of stories about people one knows who are the essence of propriety today, but who seem to have behaved, when they were in London in the ’eighties, in a manner that would not have been tolerated in the fo’c’sle of a whaler. Your uncle seems to remember everything disgraceful that happened to anybody when he was in his early twenties. There is a story about Sir Stanley Gervase-Gervase at Rosherville Gardens which is ghastly in its perfection of detail. It seems that Sir Stanley—but I can’t tell you!

    Have a dash!

    No!

    Oh, well, I shouldn’t worry. No publisher will print the book if it’s as bad as all that.

    On the contrary, your uncle told me that all negotiations are settled with Riggs and Ballinger, and he’s sending off the manuscript tomorrow for immediate publication. They make a special thing of that sort of book. They published Lady Carnaby’s ‘Memories of Eighty Interesting Years.’

    I read ’em!

    Well, then, when I tell you that Lady Carnaby’s Memories are simply not to be compared with your uncle’s Recollections, you will understand my state of mind. And father appears in nearly every story in the book! I am horrified at the things he did when he was a young man!

    What’s to be done?

    The manuscript must be intercepted before it reaches Riggs and Ballinger, and destroyed!

    I sat up.

    This sounded rather sporting.

    How are you going to do it? I inquired.

    How can I do it? Didn’t I tell you the parcel goes off tomorrow? I am going to the Murgatroyds’ dance tonight and shall not be back till Monday. You must do it. That is why I telegraphed to you.

    What!

    She gave me a look.

    Do you mean to say you refuse to help me, Bertie?

    No; but—I say!

    It’s quite simple.

    But even if I—— What I mean is—— Of course, anything I can do—but—if you know what I mean——

    You say you want to marry me, Bertie?

    Yes, of course; but still——

    For a moment she looked exactly like her old father.

    I will never marry you if those Recollections are published.

    But, Florence, old thing!

    I mean it. You may look on it as a test, Bertie. If you have the resource and courage to carry this thing through, I will take it as evidence that you are not the vapid and shiftless person most people think you. If you fail, I shall know that your Aunt Agatha was right when she called you a spineless invertebrate and advised me strongly not to marry you. It will be perfectly simple for you to intercept the manuscript, Bertie. It only requires a little resolution.

    But suppose Uncle Willoughby catches me at it? He’d cut me off with a bob.

    If you care more for your uncle’s money than for me——

    No, no! Rather not!

    Very well, then. The parcel containing the manuscript will, of course, be placed on the hall table tomorrow for Oakshott to take to the village with the letters. All you have to do is to take it away and destroy it. Then your uncle will think it has been lost in the post.

    It sounded thin to me.

    Hasn’t he got a copy of it?

    No; it has not been typed. He is sending the manuscript just as he wrote it.

    But he could write it over again.

    As if he would have the energy!

    But——

    If you are going to do nothing but make absurd objections, Bertie——

    I was only pointing things out.

    Well, don’t! Once and for all, will you do me this quite simple act of kindness?

    The way she put it gave me an idea.

    Why not get Edwin to do it? Keep it in the family, kind of, don’t you know. Besides, it would be a boon to the kid.

    A jolly bright idea it seemed to me. Edwin was her young brother, who was spending his holidays at Easeby. He was a ferret-faced kid, whom I had disliked since birth. As a matter of fact, talking of Recollections and Memories, it was young blighted Edwin who, nine years before, had led his father to where I was smoking his cigar and caused all the unpleasantness. He was fourteen now and had just joined the Boy Scouts. He was one of those thorough kids, and took his responsibilities pretty seriously. He was always in a sort of fever because he was dropping behind schedule with his daily acts of kindness. However hard he tried, he’d fall behind; and then you would find him prowling about the house, setting such a clip to try and catch up with himself that Easeby was rapidly becoming a perfect hell for man and beast.

    The idea didn’t seem to strike Florence.

    I shall do nothing of the kind, Bertie. I wonder you can’t appreciate the compliment I am paying you—trusting you like this.

    Oh, I see that all right, but what I mean is, Edwin would do it so much better than I would. These Boy Scouts are up to all sorts of dodges. They spoor, don’t you know, and take cover and creep about, and what not.

    Bertie, will you or will you not do this perfectly trivial thing for me? If not, say so now, and let us end this farce of pretending that you care a snap of the fingers for me.

    Dear old soul, I love you devotedly!

    Then will you or will you not——

    Oh, all right, I said. All right! All right! All right!

    And then I tottered forth to think it over. I met Jeeves in the passage just outside.

    I beg your pardon, sir. I was endeavouring to find you.

    What’s the matter?

    I felt that I should tell you, sir, that somebody has been putting black polish on our brown walking shoes.

    What! Who? Why?

    I could not say, sir.

    Can anything be done with them?

    Nothing, sir.

    Damn!

    Very good, sir.

    I’ve often wondered since then how these murderer fellows manage to keep in shape while they’re contemplating their next effort. I had a much simpler sort of job on hand, and the thought of it rattled me to such an extent in the night watches that I was a perfect wreck next day. Dark circles under the eyes—I give you my word! I had to call on Jeeves to rally round with one of those life-savers of his.

    From breakfast on I felt like a bag-snatcher at a railway station. I had to hang about waiting for the parcel to be put on the hall table, and it wasn’t put. Uncle Willoughby was a fixture in the library, adding the finishing touches to the great work, I supposed, and the more I thought the thing over the less I liked it. The chances against my pulling it off seemed about three to two, and the thought of what would happen if I didn’t gave me cold shivers down the spine. Uncle Willoughby was a pretty mild sort of old boy, as a rule, but I’ve known him to cut up rough, and, by Jove, he was scheduled to extend himself if he caught me trying to get away with his life work.

    It wasn’t till nearly four that he toddled out of the library with the parcel under his arm, put it on the table, and toddled off again. I was hiding a bit to the south-east at the moment, behind a suit of armour. I bounded out and legged it for the table. Then I nipped upstairs to hide the swag.

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1