{"id":13625,"date":"2013-05-20T10:15:17","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T14:15:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=13625"},"modified":"2013-05-18T13:15:52","modified_gmt":"2013-05-18T17:15:52","slug":"story-up-my-sleeve-20-jeeves-and-the-unbidden-guest-by-p-g-wodehouse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/story-up-my-sleeve-20-jeeves-and-the-unbidden-guest-by-p-g-wodehouse\/","title":{"rendered":"Story Up My Sleeve #20: “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest,” by P.G. Wodehouse"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Illustration<\/a>[Don’t know what this is? See the <\/em>Story Up My Sleeve<\/a> background page.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare — or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad — who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with a bit of lead piping. There’s no doubt the man’s right. It’s absolutely that way with me. Take, for instance, the fairly rummy matter of Lady Malvern and her son Wilmot. A moment before they turned up, I was just thinking how thoroughly all right everything was.<\/p>\n

It was one of those topping mornings, and I had just climbed out from under the cold shower, feeling like a two-year-old. As a matter of fact, I was especially bucked just then because the day before I had asserted myself with Jeeves — absolutely asserted myself, don’t you know. You see, the way things had been going on I was rapidly becoming a dashed serf. The man had jolly well oppressed me. I didn’t so much mind when he made me give up one of my new suits, because, Jeeves’s judgment about suits is sound. But I as near as a toucher rebelled when he wouldn’t let me wear a pair of cloth-topped boots which I loved like a couple of brothers. And when he tried to tread on me like a worm in the matter of a hat, I jolly well put my foot down and showed him who was who. It’s a long story, and I haven’t time to tell you now, but the point is that he wanted me to wear the Longacre — as worn by John Drew — when I had set my heart on the Country Gentleman — as worn by another famous actor chappie — and the end of the matter was that, after a rather painful scene, I bought the Country Gentleman. So that’s how things stood on this particular morning, and I was feeling kind of manly and independent.<\/p>\n

Well, I was in the bathroom, wondering what there was going to be for breakfast while I massaged the good old spine with a rough towel and sang slightly, when there was a tap at the door. I stopped singing and opened the door an inch.<\/p>\n

“What ho without there!”<\/p>\n

“Lady Malvern wishes to see you, sir,” said Jeeves.<\/p>\n

“Eh?”<\/p>\n

“Lady Malvern, sir. She is waiting in the sitting-room.”<\/p>\n

“Pull yourself together, Jeeves, my man,” I said, rather severely, for I bar practical jokes before breakfast. “You know perfectly well there’s no one waiting for me in the sitting-room. How could there be when it’s barely ten o’clock yet?”<\/p>\n

“I gathered from her ladyship, sir, that she had landed from an ocean liner at an early hour this morning.”<\/p>\n

This made the thing a bit more plausible. I remembered that when I had arrived in America about a year before, the proceedings had begun at some ghastly hour like six, and that I had been shot out on to a foreign shore considerably before eight.<\/p>\n

“Who the deuce is Lady Malvern, Jeeves?”<\/p>\n

“Her ladyship did not confide in me, sir.”<\/p>\n

“Is she alone?”<\/p>\n

“Her ladyship is accompanied by a Lord Pershore, sir. I fancy that his lordship would be her ladyship’s son.”<\/p>\n

“Oh, well, put out rich raiment of sorts, and I’ll be dressing.”<\/p>\n

“Our heather-mixture lounge is in readiness, sir.”<\/p>\n

“Then lead me to it.”<\/p>\n

While I was dressing I kept trying to think who on earth Lady Malvern could be. It wasn’t till I had climbed through the top of my shirt and was reaching out for the studs that I remembered.<\/p>\n

“I’ve placed her, Jeeves. She’s a pal of my Aunt Agatha.”<\/p>\n

“Indeed, sir?”<\/p>\n

“Yes. I met her at lunch one Sunday before I left London. A very vicious specimen. Writes books. She wrote a book on social conditions in India when she came back from the Durbar.”<\/p>\n

“Yes, sir? Pardon me, sir, but not that tie!”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n[source<\/em><\/a>]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[Don’t know what this is? See the Story Up My Sleeve background page.] I’m not absolutely certain of my facts, but I rather fancy it’s Shakespeare — or, if not, it’s some equally brainy lad — who says that it’s always just when a chappie is feeling particularly top-hole, and more than usually braced with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","h5ap_radio_sources":[],"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3448,105,713],"tags":[1777],"class_list":{"0":"post-13625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-story-up-my-sleeve","7":"category-short-fiction","8":"category-humor-writing_cat","9":"tag-p-g-wodehouse","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6kZSG-3xL","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13625"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13625\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13676,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13625\/revisions\/13676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}