The Duk Papers
part 3
In the PGW universe, men are more numerous than women. If you want to know what explanations for this sexual inequality have been fancied, you dialled the wrong number. This is the unperiodical Nothing Serious. For the information you wish to get, you'd better try the periodical Nothing Frivolous. Whatever the explanation may be, it is obvious that Wodehousian male characters require even more instalments than female ones. (Just for the benefit of fresh students, we repeat that we are dealing with the fathomless question: Who, which or what is the Greatest Character created by the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse?) Having inspected possible candidates among various kinds of animals, ladies, girls, supergirls, major as well as minor lesser men, and lords (ordinary and lofty), we are now going to treat you on four instalments dedicated to young men (= male human characters between the age limits of eighteen and forty).
§13. Level of young men (first sublevel). Counting the pages of the
report, with annexes and appendixes, presented by our commission
for scientific research, you get a total of, exactly, 147 036.
About 50 000 of those pages contain comments on PGW young men.
However, in our days of haste and hurry, every body wants Quick
Service. Well, you'll get it. We offer you even Service with a
Smile. This is to say: we shall condense the learned commission's
observations to ± 0,03% of the original, and make you believe we
like it.
Such a drastic abridgement involves a very selective process of
picking and choosing. An extremely mass of young men created by
Sir Pelham must be left out. In a ruthless way, we throw
overboard: all of those who appear in no more than one single
story. The extent to which we shall take notice of the others,
depends on the sublevel they belong to. Adopting the commission's
scientific methods, we distinguish four sublevels: (1) rats,
rogues and rascals; (2) eggs, beans and crumpets; (3) curates and
cousins; (4) extraordinaries; viz. Bertie, Freddie, Jeeves and
Psmith. (Pronouncing Psmith's P is a social blunder, as well as a
disgusting noise.)
Seventeenth note. None of the regular customers at the Anglers' Rest seems to be young, so they all find themselves on the sublevel of minor lesser men. Although their comments on things in general, and in particular on moustaches of the toothbrush-type, are very interesting, we could not find time and space for them in our eight instalment; apart from Mr. Mulliner, of course. Now, we sadly realize, it is too late.
We picked and chose four rats, rogues and
rascals to be examined in this, our eleventh, instalment. The
first one would have been an ambitionist, if he were a girl;
which he is not. As soon as we have told you that his suspicious
eyes are aided and abetted by flashing hornrimmed spectacles, you
know whom we shudderingly think of: Rupert Baxter. Sir
Pelham did not reveal the date when the Efficient Baxter was,
unfortunately, borne. Having no evidence of any grey hair on his
blasted head, we must assume that he still is, in biological
terms, a young man.
One does not easily get rid of Baxter. As the late poet Horace
well said of Nature: You may drive him out with a fork; yet,
sooner or later he will pop up again. He was, indeed, once driven
out by Lord Emsworth, who did not even need a fork on that happy
occasion. The officious secretary could be fired on the spot,
because he had provided His Lordship with strong proves of
stark-staring madness. Throwing flowerpots into your employer's
bedroom at three o'clock A.M., and - as though this were not
enough - executing that bombardment from the castle terrace in
yellow striped pyjamas, is certainly a most unusual act.
Eighteenth note. Baxter had been locked out by another nocturnal roamer, when he - acting on the spur of a sudden inspiration - looked for the spot where a thief had hidden Lady Constance's stolen necklace. After fruitless efforts to awake his employer through vocal means, in order to get access to the castle, there was no other way than saying it with flowerpots.However, this justification did not penetrate Lord Emsworth's one-track mind. Besides, Baxter offered neither an explanation, nor any excuse, for his extravagant taste in night-attire.
As we all remember but too well, Baxter came
irrepressibly back. How and why he left Blandings for the second
time, is a matter of speculation. But we know for certain that
his attempt at performing what footballers call a hattrick (three
goals in the same match scored by the same player) was
frustrated, although strongly and warmly supported by Lady
Constance.
A year or so after his second exit, he crossed Britain on a
roaring motorbike. Then he could not resist visiting the place of
his former harassing activities. He immediately decided to remain
there; now in the capacity of young George's (Lord Emsworth's
almost-human grandson's) holiday-tutor. That job was offered to
him, naturally, by Lady Constance, who ignored the juvenile
victim's indignant protests. But when is buttocks were been hit,
three times in succession, by shot from that boy's confiscated
airgun (the gifted marksman being in two of those cases Lord
Emsworth himself) Baxter furiously started his motorbike, never
to return again. For this resolute reaction, the relieved
commission awarde him an honourable mention.
The second item on our alphabetical list is the spying rat Percy
Pilbeam, who secured smashing profits for the publisher of Society
Spice. That yellow paper suffered a severe blow, when its
publisher - Lord Tilbury's Mammoth Company - refused to raise the
editor's (Percy's) salary. Although the levelheaded tycoon was
quite right when he figured out that a penny saved is as much as
a penny earned, His Lordship underrated Mr. Pilbeam's ambition to
get every penny (and pound, for that matter) he could lay his
grubby fingers on. So, yielding to the temptations of Mammon, and
quitting the service of Mammoth, Percy made himself an
independent employer. He opened a private eye's office, called Argus
Agency.
What profits he got from his new spying concern, we do not know.
Anyway, he managed to attract posh clients of solid financial
standing, like Lord Emsworth, and even his ex-employer, Lord
Tilbury. The latter was - apparently sans rancune -
ready to engage the Argus Agency in re Galahad's memoirs. As you
may remember, the honourable author had signed on the dotted line
for Mammoth's rights of publication. So Lord Tilbury thought any
means justified to get hold of the valuable manuscript. But
Percy's shady activities, as depicted in Summer Lightning
and Heavy Weather, can hardly have satisfied his noble
clients. He neither watched over the Empress keenly, as Lord
Emsworth had ordered him, nor pinched the desired manuscript
(which was, on the contrary, consumed by the omnivorous sow). A
dishonourable mention was all Percy Pilbeam got from our
head-shaking commission.
Nineteenth note. Lord Emsworth must have been deeply concerned about the consequences of the Empress' undiscriminating appetite. (Fortunately, she did not even show any sympton of a mild hangover.) You remember the chap who dared to tease the Imperial sow, in which case she took revenge by biting him bloodily. On that occasion, His Lordship urgently called his veterinary surgeon, to ask that expert anxiously whether this act of biting might have damaged the globular pig's delicate digestive system.
Now it is our duty to examine Roderick Spode (whose title - 'Lord Sidcup' - we shall ignore). Among the scarce scraps of evidence, Counsel for the Defence could submit in an attempt to exonerate this would-be-dictator, there is the fact that he does not oil his hair in reeking Pilbeam style. An other extenuating circumstance might be found in an ominous symptom of poor mental health; viz. nhis stealthily loving the Bassett girl, that sentimental babbler of baby talk. Indeed, a man who sports black shorts as a suitable garment, befitting his political views, must inevitably rouse Sir Roderick Glossop's professional curiosity. No competent psychiatrist will fail to see the link with ladies' underwear; a merchandise sold by Spode in his secret shop.
Twentieth note. Finding his opponent - muscular heavyweight Spode - a mortal danger, Bertie Wooster was happy to have the dictator's Achilles heel discovered by Jeeves. The magical word Eulalia (the name of Spode's shop) would bring home the bacon; or, as Jeeves himself put it, guarantee most satisfactory results. However, at the moment suprême, when it was of vital importance to convert the angry leader of the Black Shorts to better than homicidal ideas, all Bertie's desperate efforts to remember the releasing word failed woefully. (He had no idea what that word referred to, since Jeeves was bound by honour, and by the rigid rules of the Junior Ganymede, to disclose nothing more than the name 'Eulalia'.) For Bertie's narrow escape, see The Code of the Woosters.
Alcoholists and enemies of newts might look
indulgently at Spode's advertised project of murdering Gussie
Fink-Nottle. That teetotaller & newt-fancier
appeared to deviate from the high road (to Madeline Bassett, his
betrothed) and to prefer the low road ( to some other girl). But
our commission looked askance at Spode's project. In case of
Gussie's joining his ancestors in the hereafter, the sentimental
Madeline might have fallen back on Gussie's pal, Bertie Wooster,
her alternate elect. And that preux chevalier is constitutionally
unable to bestow the raspberry on a girl who fancies him to be in
love with her; if you can follow us. So Spode got a triple
dishonourable mention: (1) for his dictatorial ambitions; (2) for
his black shorts; (3) for his project regarding Gussie.
Finally, we have to inspect Stanley Featherstonehaugh
(sic) Ukridge. This parasitical laddie first appeared in
Love among the Chickens. (One of those chickens was the
unpleasant hen Aunt Elisabeth, who chuckled 'Charawk'
from her basket, "in the beastly, cynical, sardonical way
which has made her so disliked by all right-thinking
people.") By the way: Ukridge is not an "airy
nothing" to which was given "a local habitation and a
name"; if we may quote Shakespeare again. There is, indeed,
an authentic historical nucleus hidden in Stanley F. Ukridge. As
a young man, Plum met a chap who was, like this Ukridge, always
on the verge of getting colossal profits from daring and dashing
investments, but yet as chronically insolvent as the medieval
king Ethelred the Unready.
Let us now quote one of the statements from the mouth of that
betting, borrowing, pawning, pinching and lying looser: "She
had wanted to borrow my aunt's brooch,"... "but I was
firm and wouldn't let her have it - partly on principle and
partly because I had pawned it the day before." This is,
more or less, summing him up. Our commission thought his original
opinions, optimistic schemes and predictable disasters good
enough for a most honourable mention.
Eggs, beans and crumpets have been earmarked for our next
instalment. Thanks for glancing at this summary, my friends.
Only very superficial readers will tell you off-hand who, which or what is the Greatest Character created by the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. The PGWS one-man-commission for scientific research needed 147 036 pages to provide us with a well-founded answer to that intricate question. We do our humble best to summarize the commission's learned report; so we hope we deserve better than your skipping all of our previous instalments. Meanwhile, numerous Wodehousian animals, ladies, girls and supergirls, two classes of lesser men, and two of lordly men, along with the sublevel of rats, rogues and villains, have been inspected. Now we proceed to:
§12bis. Sublevel of eggs, beans and
crumpets. Aiming at the utmost clarity and simplicity, our
commission put all pals of Bertie Wooster's on this sublevel. So
none of them was qualified as a rat, rogue or villain; even not
Oofy Prosser. Still, curates were excepted, for they seem to
refrain from participating in the Drones' cultural activities
(like betting in the member with the fattest uncle).
Partly hidden behind a long Assyrian beard, most honourably
mentioned Richard ('Bingo') Little was already present in our
third instalment. Then we did not tell you that he courted the
buxom bolshevist girl Charlotte Corday Rowbotham. His hairy
disguise was eventually torn off by that girl's jealous betrothed
('Nature's worst blunder'). This incident happened in front of an
entertained public at Hyde Park Corner, where Bingo was preaching
the Revolution. That oratorial activity had nothing to do with
his own political views. It was just a histrionic feat, intented
to impress the revolutionary girl.
Twentyfirst headnote. On an earlier occasion, Bertie Wooster and Bingo's uncle, Lord Bittlesham, found themselves among his audience, but neither of them recognized the bearded speaker. Pointing at this duo, Bingo exclaimed: "Look at the tall thin one with a face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day's work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a bloodsucker! And I bet he still ownes his tailor for those trousers!" This went well with Lord Bittlesham, who chuckled: "A great gift of expression these fellows have. Very trenchant."
However, His Lordship was less amused when Bingo continued: "And the fat one! Don't miss him. Do you know who that is? That's Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now, you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week."
Some weeks before the debearding incident,
Bingo had invited himself, Charlotte, her papa and her betrothed
( whom he tried to soak off from her) to high tea at Bertie's.
Jeeves remained impassive in face of Charlotte's profuse curves,
and even at her dad's angry rebuke for being called 'Sir', in
stead of 'Comrade'. But what the three 'Heralds of the Red Dawn'
then wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor, and
shoved into their own throats, made the shockproof gentleman's
personal gentleman nearly collapse. They swallowed huge
quantities of sardines, ham and jam; a sight so gruesome
as never recorded before, by any butler or valet, in the file of
the Junior Ganymede club.
A list of all girls who took Bingo's fancy for a while, could
scarcely be pressed within the limits of one instalment of our
summary. Looking at that list, one wonders how 'this little isle,
this blessed realm, this England' (yes, more or less Shakespeare,
again) can contain so many girls without bursting. Be that as it
may, we must confine ourselves here to the last one: the
authoress Rosie M. Banks, who actually married Bingo.
Rosie provides the Anglo-Saxon illiterate with the stuff that
dreams are made of. You, highbrow, may scorn masterpieces like Only
a factory girl, but Bingo gets his pocket-money from the
nice royalties his wife earns by producing such best-selling
pulp. That pocket-money is of vital importance, since his uncle,
Lord Bittlesham (now married, too), stopped the monthly
allowance. However, Rosie stipulated an embarrassing proviso: the
money is not for betting. So Bingo is compelled to invent
complicated schemes and ingenious subterfuges whenever he has
lost his little all, again, on a horse he had overrated.
Twentysecond headnote. Perhaps, you wonder why Bingo does not do a bit of work to raise the funds he needs for his flutters. But you must know his reply when Bertie put the same question to him. "'Work?' said young Bingo, surprised. 'What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way.'" Yet, in case of emergency, he does not recoil from accepting a more or less real job. Once, he even went as far as tutoring a subhuman pupil at Twing Hall, of all places (see below). Nowadays, he is in a position to exploit his and Rosie's baby. If fatherly pride and prejudice did not prevent him from doing so, he could show this offspring for a proper fee to the general public as the Fattest and Most Dreadfully Dribbling British Infant.
You may remember the enormous fish, the remains
of which were brought to your attention in our first instalment.
It had been pinched by Claude and Eustace,
twins, and cousins of Bertie's. Why they preferred pinching to
purchasing, is no mystery: The competent authorities at their Alma
Mater (Oxford, of course) required more dash and initiative
than one needs for a simple transaction with a fishmonger. As the
twins forgot to close the window in Bertie's bedroom, where they
had parked their loot, the smell of the gilled cadaver attracted
an army of cats. The feline intervention reduce the superfish to
a ruin that could scarcely satisfy the critical Oxonian
authorities. So we are not surprised of the fact that neither
Claude, nor Eustace, ever arrived at the top of the world of
science.
These twins are, however, good in more important matters. Let us
give you an example. Suppose, you have to stay, like Claude and
Eustace (together with Bingo), for several months at Twing Hall.
That "is one of those places where there isn't a frightful
lot to do, nor any very hectic excitement to look forward to. In
fact, the only event of any importance on the horizon will be
"the annual village school treat". Apart from hanging
yourself, you might see then no other realistic option than
drinking as much of the Hall's port and whiskey as the butler is
ready to serve you. But Claude and Eustace have got better ideas;
which is not to say they would spare the port, let alone the
whiskey. What they do in such a case is: planning, organizing and
enjoying a Great Sermon Handicap.
Twentythird headnote. For a sermon handicap, great or not, you need: (1) a shrewd person, capable of bookmaking; (2) six or more preaching vicars or curates in your region; (3) the same number of independent stewards with accurate stopwatches; (4) betting enthousiasts (the more, the merrier). Having gathered elementary information about the average time each of the six of more vicars/curates needs for a sermon, the bookmaking person fixes their handicaps accordingly. Then everyone gets the opportunity to bet, at current odds, on the clergyman who, he thinks, will win. The winning clergyman is the vicar or curate who delivers the longest sermon. For calculating the length of a sermon, one adds the handicap (in minutes) of the preaching clergyman to his actual time of delivery, as recorded by the steward in charge. Such is the simple and brilliant idea.
As a rule, the lion's share of the funds
invested in a sermon handicap will go to the man fulfilling the
function of bookmaker. He knows how to set the handicaps and to
fix the odds to be offered to him. But there is much fun in store
for the others. They got a lot of excitement from the various
conflicting rumours about the current form of the starters: the
clergymen scheduled for preaching on the Day of the Event. And
tips from the horse's mouth (what a vicar or curate sees fit to
disclose about his next sermon) are absolutely thrilling.
The exploits of Claude and Eustace, as depicted in The Inimitable
Jeeves, moved our commission to mention both of them honourably.
An even higher distinction - most honourable - has been awarded
to Augustus ('Gussie') Fink Nottle. We met this teetotaller &
newt-fancier already more than once in passing. You remember
Spode's project of breaking Gussie's worthless neck. The Black
Shorts' duce had caught Gussie at Totleigh Towers when that
abstemious Don Juan was kissing the pretty cook. She had provided
him with the steak he wished for, although his official
betrothed, the vegetarian Madeline, had forbidden such
cannibalism. However, Gussie's merits are not confined to kissing
cooks, fancying newts and totalling tee.
If your knowledge of the Dutch language is somewhat better than
that of TV-talkers at Hilversum, you might be able to read a
collection of speeches called Schokkende Redevoeringen (edited by
J.P.Guépin; Amsterdam 1990). Leafing that collection, you will
find many old favourites. But one speech seems to have escaped
the editor's notice: Gussie's immortal address to the privileged
listeners who attended his Prize-Giving at Market Snodsbury
Grammar School. That demonstration of oratorial genius was the
more miraculous since Gussie had no previous practice at all.
(Such practice would have been wasted on newts; coldblooded
animals, unable to appreciate eloquence.)
Twentyfourth headnote. Part of our congratulations for the Snodsbury Address should be offered to the distillers of the gin stored in the cellars of Brinkley Court (Aunt Dahlia's and Uncle Tom's home). Three helpings of that liquid were enough to transform a frightened, nervous and virtually speechless Gussie into an orator who could have given useful hints to Demosthenes, Cicero, Bossuet and Sir Winston Churchill. Even if we take into account the extraordinary volume of the quantities of gin with which Bertie, Jeeves and the teetotalling speaker himself - unaware of each other's activities - loaded Gussie's orange juice, we cannot help being deeply impressed by the sensational results.
Yet, Gussie is not everybody's cup of tea.
'Catsmeat' Potter-Pirbright, having deputized for Bertie as
Gussie's host, looks back on that occasion as the most tiresome
evening in his life. This is strange, because he persuaded Gussie
at 4 A.M. to go wading in a fountain on Trafalgar Square and
catch some of the newts supposed to reside there. Then the
Majesty of the Law, in the sturdy shape of a London bobby, took
the newt-fancier out of Catsmeat's sphere of influence. After the
ritual question 'Wot's all this?', Gussie was duly arrested.
Bertie panicked. It seemed to him improbable that a girl like
Madeline Bassett would be prepared to enter into Holy Wedlock
with a jail-bird. On the contrary, she would dismiss her criminal
lover, and condemn him, Bertie, her second choice, to serve a
life-sentence as her husband. Acting upon Jeeves' advice, he went
as Gussie's stand-in to Deverill Hall. There he had to play the
part of a teetotaller who knew everything about the love-life, if
any, of newts. This amounted to what Americans call a 'helluva'
job, but in principle it was feasible, since nobody at Deverill
Hall had ever met the genuine Augustus Fink Nottle.
Twentyfifth headnote. If you studied The Mating Season, we need not tell you that Deverill Hall is Esmond Haddock's residence, Gussie was expected there to be inspected (and, if possible, approved of) by Madeline's godmother, Dame Daphne Winkworth, the poetess honourably mentioned in our fourth instalment.She is the gangleader of the dreadful platoon of Esmond's aunts, then all living at his stately home.
Keeping Gussie's criminal record in the dark
for Madeline was, naturally, essential. The state of affairs
became, however, very complicated when (1) Dame Daphne found the
alleged teetotalling pseudo-Gussie - bottle of port in one hand;
beating time with the other hand - standing on a table and
singing, together with Esmond Haddock, the improved version of A-hunting
we will go; (2) Gussie, whose sentence had been remitted,
arrived at Deverill Hall under an alias (on Jeeves' advice that
of Bertie Wooster); (3) Bertie's Aunt Agatha threatened to join
the company at the Hall, as well as Madeline Bassett, who got
alarmed because of receiving no love-letters from Gussie.
There was also Esmond's inferiority-complex, which prevented his
defying the platoon of aunts. His loved one - filmstar Corky
Pirbright, Catsmeat's sister - had made that defiance a necessary
condition for her readiness to marry him. The overwhelming
success of his rendering A-hunting we will go at the
village concert enabled him at last (as Jeeves had foreseen and
foretold) to defy all aunts. Lovely and lively Corky is now his
very happy wife, and Bertie did not get the life sentence he
dreaded.
But, in the end, Madeline got Spode in stead of Gussie. Well, that's another story, my friends. See you in our next instalment.
You must still allow us three instalments of our summary of the report submitted by the PGWS one-man-commission for scientific research, and dealing with the perplexing question: Who,which or what is the Greatest Character created by the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse? Even after three treatises on animals, another three on female human beings, and no less than six on male ones, we have not yet exhausted the PGW universe. Let us look now at one of the two remaining categories.
§15. Sublevel of curates and cousins. Our
commission does not use the word 'curate' in a loose
way. Its learned members are well aware of the scientific truth
that you can never become a curate in a PGW story, unless you are
a young clergyman of slender means, and in love with a lovely
girl. Genuine Wodehousian curates are, moreover, vigorous boxers,
who got their Boxing Blue at the University of Oxford.
The seemingly simple term 'cousin', on the other hand,
refers to a more complicated concept. To make it comprehensible
for laymen, we might say: Cousins are young men who find
themselves above the sublevel of rats, rogues and rascals, and
separated from that of eggs, beans and crumpets, but who are
neither members of the clergy, nor characters on the sublevel of extraordinary
young men: Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, Reginald Jeeves,
Frederick Threepwood and Rupert Psmith (If, in spite of our
repeated warnings, you still try to pronounce Psmith's P, you
will never be able to speak Knut-language.)
Twentysixth headnote. Elementary information about Knut-language can be found in Richard Usborne's Penguin Wodehouse Companion (ed. 1988, p. 130). That colourful language has, at least, seven synonyms for bye-bye: 'bung-ho', 'honk-honk', 'pip-pip', 'poo-hoop-a-hoop', 'teuf-teuf', 'tinkerty-tonk' and 'toodle-oo'.
Why are those young men called 'cousins', you
wonder? Well - why not? You might as well ask why a spade is
called a 'spade' in stead of simply a 'spa', like in Dutch. After
all, the average young man is really somebody's cousin, is not
he? Your silly questions cause, if we may say so, an irritating
delay on the way to the presentation of our final List of
Honours.
True to type are two curates, honourably mentioned by
our commission. The first one is the Rev.William
(Bill) Bailey. Before he got the vicarage enabling
him to start a family, he took care of the souls in an
East-London parish. How he managed to keep those souls, along
with the bodies they enhanced, within reasonable bounds of law
and order, we can easily imagine, considering his robust
physique. His kind heart kindled the flame of love in th bosom of
Myra, Mr. Schoonmaker's charming daughter. (We
met that American tycoon and financial genius already a couple of
times. Eventually, he became Lady Constance's second husband. See
our fouth and tenth instalments, if you did not throw them away.)
Myra stayed at Blandings, supervised by Lady Constance, in whose
opinion a good-looking nephew of the Duke of Dunstable's was a
much more suitable suitor than a penniless clergyman. As Bill had
deeply fallen in love for Myra, Lord Ickenham thought fit to take
this young Man-in-Holy-Orders to Blandings. He introduced him
there as his 'friend Cuthbert Meriwether, just returned
from Brasil'. But Lavender Briggs (the ambitionist we also
mentioned already more than once) recognized the impostor, whom
she had once met in London, and whose rugged face is, indeed,
unforgettable.
She then tried to blackmail Bill into her service as an unpaid
pignapper. Fortunately, her criminal scheme stranded on his
praiseworthy scruples. He would have spurned her gold (said Lord
Ickenham) if she had offered it to him; which, of course, she had
not. Bill told the truth about the planned pignapping to
Lord Emsworth; and - to make his story plausible - revealed his
real identity.
Now Lady Constance found her misgivings about Lord Ickenham and
his dubious friends once again horribly justified. She would have
ordered a couple of muscular footmen to throw the young clergyman
ruthlessly out of the castle, and see to it that he landed on
something sharp and solid; but for Lord Ickenham's intervention.
With pursed lips and gnawing teeth, Her Ladyship was compelled to
tolerate Bill's unwarranted wooing in the castle's romantic
rosegarden.
If you forgot what Lord Ickenham said (very untruthfully) to Lady
Constance, so as to secure her cooperation, we refer once more to
Service with a Smile. Here we can hardly summarize the
intricate course of events. There were, inter alia: (1)
Lord Emsworth's cutting (some time before dawn) the ropes to
which the tents of the Church Lads owed their stability; (2) his
being photographed, by his almost-human grandson, in the very act
of cutting; (3) the confiscation of the incriminating film by the
Duke of Dunstable, who wished to use it for his own purposes; (4)
Lavender's fat check from the Duke (for the promised pignapping),
shrewdly stopped by His Grace; (5) her cashing a check, for the
same amount and for the same promise, from Lord Tilbury; (6) the
inferiority-complex overtaking Mr. Schoonmaker whenever he
started to propose to Lady Constance; (7) the all-round happy
ending (but neither for Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, nor for
George, Baron of Tilbury).
The other curate we have in mind is the Rev. Rupert
('Beefers') Bingham. Just like Bill Bailey, he
stayed - for the Sacred Sake of Love - at Blandings under an
alias. As he was not introduced there by Lord Ickenham, but by
the Honourable Freddie Threepwood, he adopted the dogfoodish name
of 'Popjoy', in stead of the bright Brazilian
'Meriwether'. Besides, the object of his tender feelings was not
Myra, but Freddie's cousin Gertrude. This girl -
offspring from Georgina, Lady Alcester, one of Lord Emsworth's
numerous sisters - has been honourably mentioned by our
chivalrous commission ( for her very good looks, we may assume).
Since you know, of course, Company for Gertrude by
heart, we need not tell you how Beefers tried to win Lord
Emsworth's favour, in order to become His Lordship's choice for
the living of Much Matchingham.As soon as he got that living, he
could look for a colleague, ready to raise the question:
"Willst Thou, Gertrude ...?" and get the right answer.
Neither will it be necessary to remind you of his success, when
he had brutally broken Lord Emsworth's strong resistance against
being 'rescued' out of the refreshing pond at Blandings. Then the
exasperated Ninth Earl instantly bestowed the living on Beefers.
This was not meant as a reward for the young clergyman's zealous
efforts, but rather as an act of revenge on Sir Gregory
Parsloe-Parsloe. That well-nourished pigbreeding gentleman
happened to live in the parish where it would be now, so Lord
Emsworth rightly reasoned, the Rev. R. Bingham's (or Popjoy's)
duty and delight to take continually care of the fat baronet's
sinister soul.
You cannot be less familiar with The go-getter than with
the preceding story. Our telling further details of Beefers'
love-life would, then, certainly annoy you. So we shall abstain
from relating the no-nonsense way in which he put an abrupt end
to a thrilling dogfight. Thus he secured: (1) a colossal business
transaction for Freddie, crownprince and chief-salesman in
Donaldson's Dogfood Empire, and (2) the proper direction of the
lovelight in Gertrude's eyes (which light had been temporarily
led astray by a dog-fearing tenor).
In the multitude of cousins, no one could show
sufficient staying-power to satisfy our fastidious commission.
Timid Pongo Twistleton-Twistleton had to be
disqualified; not because of his timidity, but since he is one of
Bertie Wooster's pals. He may be an egg, a bean or a crumpet, but
he can never become a cousin in the scientific sense of that
term.
The same applies to good eggs like 'Catsmeat'
Potter-Pirbright, and to practical jokers like Tuppy
Glossop, the looney-doctor's son as well as the educationist
Honoria's brother. This frivolous Glossop Junior saw fit to untie
and undo the rope above the Drones swimming pool. He committed
that underhand perfidious act when Bertie Wooster, in consequence
of a seemingly safe bet, used the same rope for proceeding to the
other side of the pool. Even if the poolwater was virtually free
from dirt and mud, it could scarcely do a bit of good to the
immaculate crease in Bertie's trousers, or to any other part of
his faultless full evening dress. How the furious victim tried to
take revenge, has been truthfully told in our seventh instalment.
If you were rash enough to skip that instalment, we cannot help
you.
The special sublevel of extraordinary young men will now - this is to say: in the next edition of the unperiodical Nothing Serious - require your studious attention.
We did not tell you Who, which or what is the Greatest Character created by the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse. If you think it is high time to finish our tedious investigations, and come forward with the golden medal earmarked for that character's breast, you are deprived of the patience befitting genuine Plum addicts. Taking into account the size of the report we endeavour to summarize in this humble serial, you should rather be surprised of our extreme brevity. What did you say? Oh - you don't know which report we are talking about? So you are unfamiliar with the 147 036 pages (in small print) presented by the PGWS commission for scientific research. Very well. This is to say: keep your mumbling mouth kindly shut for the remains of the day.
§16. Special sublevel of extraordinary
young men. In conformity with our commission's methodical
ways, we shall put the four young men occupying this special
sublevel in alphabetical order. You know them of course:
(1) Reginald Jeeves, a genius, disguised as a gentleman's
personal gentleman;
(2) Rupert Psmith, whose silent P marks his extraordinariness;
(3) Frederick Threepwood, Crown prince in Mr. Donaldson's Dogfood
Empire, but as yet a metaphorical nail in what would have been
Lord Emsworth's coffin, if that Peer of the Realms were not
immortal;
(4) Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, young man-about-town, always on
the verge of getting married, but every time miraculously rescued
by Jeeves.
Even the learned members of our
one-man-commission seem to have had some difference of opinion
concerning the merits of these extraordinary young men. But
finally, the agreed that - on the long run - two of them must be
deemed to have fallen just a head short in the race for our
medal. First of all, we shall examine this couple of fine
runners-up. Clearly, Psmith is not
endowed with Bertie's and Jeeves' extreme staying power. After Leave
it to Psmith, he left with his lovely wife (Eve, honourably
mentioned in our sixth instalment) and after that exit he did not
reappear anywhere in the PGW universe. True, rumour has it that,
in 1939/1940, Sir Pelham wrote a book under the title 'Left
to Psmith'. If we might believe the source of this whispered
rumour, the manuscript of that book was seized by the Germans
when they had invaded France. They were sure that Psmith
was a code-name of a dangerous British spy. Having failed to find
any message, or even any sense, in the pinched manuscript
(suspected to contain instructions for the spy Psmith), they put
it away at a secret and, so far, undiscovered hiding-place. Well,
maybe, perhaps; indeed. With Germans, you never can tell.
Even under the most testing and disturbing circumstances, Psmith
was - and, undoubtedly, still is - an imperturbable and
overwhelming talker. As such, he has no rival in the Wodehousian
(or in any other) world. Although he appears to have been
constructed out of a rib taken from a young man Sir Pelham met in
his youth ( a monocled individual who pretended to get every day
"thinnah and thinnah"), he is, in substance,
an absolutely original character, created by the Master's suberb
fancy.
The Honourable Freddie Threepwood
will surely be fair enough to admit that - when it comes to
bluffing, and to browbeating opponents - he cannot hope ever to
become a match for Rupert Psmith. But we must not underrate this
son-in-law to a wealthy manufacturer of dog biscuits. (That
American tycoon has got sixteen million pre-war dollars,
amounting to a total of two hundred and forty million post-war
ones. 'All counted', Mr. Donaldson will modestly
remark.)
We can, however, hardly pretend that Freddie's brains are always
operating with the speed of lightning. Here and there, and
certainly in the circle of our PGWS, one may find human minds
which are brighter and more brilliant than the intellect
inherited by this descendant from nine earls (apart from quite a
few Norman barons preceding those earls). Nonetheless, he has got
outstanding merits. We now think in particular of his splendid
successes in matters of the heart, culminating in his marrying
Aggie, Mr. Donaldson's elder daughter and Penny's sister, as well
as McAllister's beautiful and lovely niece. His marriage survived
the crisis caused by his - quite innocently - hobnobbing with a
radiant young actress. Then, for the duration of a day or two,
his wife (put off balance by a malicious girl friend with a
poisonous serpent's tongue) seriously contemplated a divorce. We
can all vividly remember that crisis. A predominant part was
played by Lord Emsworth's temporary bushman's beard (a horror to
Beach), and also by Freddie's script for a moving drama; which
specimen of theatrical art involved peptalking to the radiant
actress.
Actually, at moments of inspiration, Freddie's mind shows a
penetrating force. We offered already an illuminating example in
our fifth instalment. (You saw fit, we guess, to use that
instalment for packing kitchen-garbage).Then we informed you
about his method of unmasking female detectives. In the roaring
twenties, he derived his inspiration mainly from motion pictures;
but nowadays probably from TV-soap and -commercials. Anyhow, he
is no more in a position to consult his monumental collection of
books and booklets with stories about hard crime and soft sex;
for, on the day of his emigration to the U.S.A., he bequeathed
that unique collection generously to Beach.
Unfortunately, he keeps irritating his noble father; inter
alia by his habit of standing on one leg and repeating, like
a vociferous parrot, Lord Emsworth's less coherent questions and
observations. As a ready explanation of the Ninth Earl's tendency
to look, in a gloomy way, askance at his younger son, we may
point at the considerable sums His Lordship found himself bound
to withdraw from his bank-account on the many occasions, in the
past, when Freddie's debts of honour came up for being settled.
But, in contrast to Lord Emsworth, we are not amazed at all of
Aggie's being fond of her princely consort.
Who would not like a young man trying to demonstrate the
wholesome qualities of Donaldson's Dog Joy by swallowing a
mouthful of that canine food? That he was deprived of all
training, deemed necessary for performing such a feat, makes the
heroism of his self-sacrificing act of salesmanship the more
impressive. (He did not take any precautionary measure. In order
to prevent the unpleasant experience of being suffocated by a
solid mass of cataracting concrete, he should have practised
thoroughly on less violent stuff: at first on sawdust, then on
steel spikes, and finally, as the ultimate step to perfection, on
British cereals.) So the Honourable Frederick Threepwood was,
just like Rupert Psmith, Esq., mentioned honourably in the
extreme by our scientific commission.
Now, my friends, take your hats off - if any,
and male - and bow your dignified heads; for this is the place
where we are directly confronted with a PGW character of
immeasureable greatness: Mr. Reginald Jeeves.
As far as your memories are up-to-standard, you will remember
what we tried to teach you in our seventh instalment: There can
be only one question regarding Jeeves. Does he find
himself on the very top of the huge heap of great Wodehousian
characters, or just near it? That, my dear friends, is the
question.
Many Plum addicts will now protest, screaming noisily and
violently that Jeeves is, beyond any reasonable doubt, the
Greatest Character ever created by human hands. Such protests are
endearing, but characteristic of laymen, disqualified for the
membership of a venerable body like our commission. Uneducated
people hearing the name 'P.G. Wodehouse' will, indeed,
automatically bleat: 'Jeeves!'Such a Pavlovian reaction
is not provoked by the nickname 'Plum', nor by the official name
'Sir Pelham', because those names fail to ring a bell in what we
might call their 'minds', if that overstatement were permitted in
a scientific treatise. Naturally, we shall not take the trouble
of commenting on the title of 'butler' (sic!) bestowed
on Jeeves by the most uncultivated portion of the illiterate. It
would be ridiculous to point out his super-human talents and
countless epoch-making feats and exploits. Following the examples
given by William the Silent, Prince of Orange-Nassau, and by the
anonymous taciturn parrot, examined in our second instalment, we
shall here abstain from speaking further about the phenomenon
called 'Reginald Jeeves'. He will, with due apologies, speak for
himself as soon as he has noiselessly entered into our last - our
fifteenth - instalment.
How about Bertie Wooster?
Perhaps, you are prepared to defend the thesis, that this
extraordinary young man is (if we may quote Jeeves, in stead of
the late poet Shakespeare) 'mentally negligible'. Well, dearest
darlings, let us then tell you something for your benefit: That
thesis has been unanimously rejected - nay, condemned as absolute
absurd - by our learned commission.
Furthermore: if you are condescendingly ready to have Bertram
Wilberforce Wooster, Esq., mentioned 'honourably in the extreme',
you will get al yellow card, or even a red one. The members of
our One-Man-Commission for Scientific Research - serious and
severe scientists, specialised in wodehousiology - do not look
indulgently at symptoms of superficial condescension. There is,
indeed, infinitely more in Bertram than meets your myopic eye.
Just wait and see our last instalment.
Only the Dutch devil, called Joost, and our Dutch editor, called Josepha, know the occult date at which that instalment will explosively appear.
Now we have arrived at the apotheosis of this summary. Our final List of Honours will be revealed to all people who enjoy the privilege of finding themselves on Nothing Serious' mailing-list, and to those who were clever enough to pinch a copy of the present edition. By saying 'our', we use that word in a loose way. The real authors of the List are, of course, the utterly competent members of the PGWS One-Man-Commission for Scientific Research. Charged with the task of telling us 'Who, which or what is the Greatest Character created by the late Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse', they offered us 147 036 pages of lucid prose (and occasional poetry* ) about that fascinating question. Their ultimate conclusions read as follows.
§17. List of Honours. This is our commision's verdict:
Animal Class:
Gold:
Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress of Blandings;
the fattest and most stoical sow in the universe.
Silver (ex aequo):
1. Bartholomew, Aberdeen terrier; capable of
stunning Jeeves, and
2. The Mixer, mongrel; greatest canine
philosopher.
Bronze:
Her Royal Majesty, the Queen of Matchingham;
sow, unethically imported from Kent; the Empress' most dangerous
rival before she became a whole-sale consumer of Slimmo.
Female Human Class:
Gold:
Mrs. Dahlia Travers, née Wooster;
Bertie's beloved and robust aunt, who can call the cattle home
over the Sand of Dee. Among her countless merits, we note (1) the
fact of her inviting Bertie, in her capacity of editor, to
practise his considerable literary talent by contributing to the
famous (albeit unprofitable) magazine Milady's Boudoir,
(2) her employing the gifted French cook Anatole, and (3) her
never being unduly hampered by scruples.
Silver:
Miss Roberta Wickham, Bertie's cherished ex-fiancée,
deemed unsuitable by Jeeves because of the too vivid shade of her
ominous red hairs. Ticking-bomb in disguise, one-girl
beauty-chorus, and phantom of delight, competently keeping dogs
as well as snakes, and advertising fictitious engagements in The
Times.
Bronze:
Lady Constance Schoonmaker, née Threepwood;
Lord Emsworth's most queenly sister and Commander-in-Chief,
standing no nonsense. Supporter of Baxter and similar harassing
individuals, but a poor markswoman when equipped with confiscated
airguns. Never finishes a telephone call within thirty minutes.
Recommends the daily consumption of Slimmo. Is unsound on pigs.
Male Human Class:
Gold (ex aequo):
1. Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth;
suppressed by a legion of sisters. Is (selectively)
absent-minded. Wears shabby shooting jackets with holes in the
elbows, and uses paperclips as substitutes for collar studs.
Looks askance at his younger son, but is genial and friendly to
all people who do not harass him, provided they are sound on
pigs. A far from pompous - indeed, an irresistibly attractive -
man, without any ambition beyond the restricted range of his
modest (yet solid) talents; clearly exceeding, by miles, the
limits of light comedy.
2. Bertram Wilberforce Wooster, Esq., author of diaries showing a fantastic literary talent, developed through his contribution to Milady's Boudoir about what well-dressed men are wearing. Creator of Knut-language. Anti-hero, always taking the right side and the sympathetic viewpoint; never arrogant, never self-righeous, never pompous, never vulgar, never dull.The most amusing young man in all English - and other - literature known to the Commission.
3. Mr. Reginald Jeeves, valet and genius. All other celebrated characters playing some servant's part in world-literature - even Sancho Panza and Figaro - must give way to Sir Pelham's most famous creation. But Jeeves is seen through Bertie Wooster's eyes, and depicted by Bertie's pen. Only one story about Bertie and Jeeves is told by the latter. In comparison with the other ones, that story falls undeniably flat. Put shortly: Jeeves needs Bertie, as well as Bertie needs him, and forever the twain shall meet. Therefore: gold for both of them. (Although you could not hear him entering, Jeeves has just shimmered in , like a benevolent ghost. His deferential comment on our verdict reads simply; "If I may take the liberty of expressing my gratitude, I thank you very much indeed, Sir.")
Silver (ex aequo):
1. Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, fifth Earl
of Ickenham, most successful impostor ever created. A
dignified character, guilty of countless acts causing all
three-card-trick-men to purse their criminal lips and shake their
villain heads.Ruthless defender of young people in love with
unsuitable partners, and dito frustrator of pignappers.
Makes his nephew, timid Pongo Twistleton-Twistleton, twist,
tremble and shudder. Silver, to match his exemplary moustache, as
well as the waved grey hairs on his shapely skull.
2. Rupert Psmith (with silent P), Esq., is puzzled by The Pale Parabola of Joy (conjured up, in an interesting literary work, by an impatient Canadian poet), but well up to all puzzling phenomena. Does not, in principle, object to crime, provided it has nothing to do with fish. A highly gifted talker, in particular when he is dealing with poetesses and their partners in crime: pearls-pinching crooks, pointing loaded pistols at him. With a little more staying-power, he would have got a bit of our gold.
3. The Honourable Frederick Threepwood, perversering salesman and heroic swallower of Donaldson's Dog Joy. Expert unmasker of female detectives. Knowledgeable collector of printed matter about mysterious murders, committed by cold-blooded criminals with sinister facilities, like trapdoors and underground dens. Liked by all right-thinking people; save Lord Emsworth, whose critical opinion about his younger son has, however, been unanimously excused by the silver-awarding Commission.
4. The Honourable Galahad Threepwood proved the revolutionary medical thesis that a misspent life, combined with ruinous drinking and sleeping habits (which would, in cases of well-spent lives, provoke premature business for all undertakers present) causes radiant health in your late fifties, and after. Is sound on pigs, and on everything else a man should be sound on, but refuses to disclose the Mystery of the Prawns. So we - taking revenge - deny him our gold.
Bronze (approximately ex aequo):
1. Mr. Sebastian Beach, butler; a dignified
procession of one. Ready to take the rough with the smooth, but
tempted to give notice when Lord Emsworth thinks fit to breed a
bushman's beard on both cheeks. Obedient transporter of the
Empress ( to a save hiding place) and of a sack filled with rats
(to an unknown destination). Beloved master of a spying
bullfinch. Appreciates vintage port. Is in possession of a
full-moon-face, at least three chins, and a swelling waistcoat.
Believes gold and silver to lie above his station,
2. Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, the most inconsiderate and welcome-outstaying individual who ever cultivated and blew a walrus-moustache in the tumultuous History of Mankind. Suggested curtly and seriously a slimming cure for the Empress. Does not recoil from pignapping conspirations. Considers all women to be foggy between the ears, and every member of the male sex (apart from himself) even worse. As His Grace would have violently protested if he had got silver, we may as well offer him bronze, which he will now throw at our feet.
3. Augustus Fink Nottle, Esq., teetotaller & newt-fancier, but no vegetarian. Kisses pretty cooks who provide him with saucy steaks, in violation of strict orders from his official betrothed. (His neck is then in mortal danger of being brutally broken by the muscular leader of Black Shorts.) Demonstrates oratorical genius when his orange juice has been lavishly loaded with unteetotallian gin, but gets arrested after trying to catch absent newts on Trafalgar Square. Considered good enough for bronze.
4. Richard Little, Esq., sportsman. His unerringly betting on the wrong horse, aggravated by his chronical shortness of cash, hampers his being on speaking terms with turf-accountants. Whole-sale lover (before he met Rosie) and occasionally political agitator, preaching a bloody Revolution at Hyde Park Corner. Evades accepting real jobs - as far as humanly possible - since work does not suit him. Expresses himself fluently in Knut-language, but needs Jeeves' advice when investing borrowed money in Sermon Handicaps. Deserves undoubtedly our honouring bronze.
5. Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, Bart.; too fat for silver, this well-noourished pigbreeder, scorning and ignoring Ethical Codes which forbid the importation of sows criminally involved in the shocking affair known as "The Mystery of the Prawns". Got painfull blisters when executing a tentative slimming cure ordered by his short-time fiancée, Gloria Salt. Married Maudy Stubs, née Beach (an excellent ex-barmaid), several decades after the day of their appointed meeting at a registrar's office. Accused, by the Honourable Galahad, of treacherous actions; inter alia, feeding the latter's dog Towser a tremendous mass of steak-and-onions, some minutes before the start of a rat-hunting contest with the Parsloe dog. Suspected, by the same honourable gentleman, of being ready to tamper with his own grandmother. However, such an old lady has never been identified.
You failed to find above the answer to the everlasting question: 'Who, which of what is really the greatest PGW character?'? Then try to learn the useful art of reading between the lines, my friends. We shall stop here, for this is definitively.
The End
*) Violating a strict Wodehousian rule - viz. that no provocation whatsoever can justify any footnote - we permit ourselves to offer you here some information about that occasional poetry. Quoted in the report are: (1) Bertie's darlings; in particular the fellows who bore, 'midst snow and ice, the banner with the strange device (Excelsior!) and Mary's lamb, conspicuous by its fleece as white as snow. Wherever that girl saw fit to roam, the lamb was sure to go. (2) Jeeves' favourite lines from highbrow poets, like the late William Shakespeare and their Lordships, George Byron and Alfred Tennyson, along with that bearded American guy, Henry Longfellow.