Bertie is in Bingley-on-Sea for the annual Drones Club golf tournament. There he runs into Bobbie Wickham who invites herself to dinner along with her young cousin Clementina whose birthday it is. She asks Bertie to take Clementina back to her school afterwards.
But nothing is simple with Bobbie and it turns out that the kid is out of school without permission and has to be sneaked back in. Worse, the headmistress is a pal of Bertie's Aunt Agatha!
| Bertie Wooster | |
| Jeeves | his valet |
| Roberta Wickham | a young lady |
| Clementina | her cousin |
| Miss Mapleton | a head mistress |
| a policeman |
First published January 1930 in the Strand and Cosmopolitan (US) magazines.
' 'Twas on a summer's evening in my tent, the day I overcame the Nervii.'
- Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act 3, Scene 2.
Lammas Eve
- the last day of July.
Harrogate
- a spa town in Yorkshire where people went to drink the waters, to 'take the cure'.
Antibes
- a resort on the south coast of France, near Nice.
'... conk in the first chukka.'
- give up or fail in the first round. Chukka is the name of the playing periods in the game of polo.
'... putting sherbet in the ink to make it fizz!'
- this was in the days of liquid ink and scratchy nibs that had to be dipped in it - getting the right amount on the pen was an art in itself. The ink was often in a small pot let in to each child's desk. (Less likely to be knocked over but collecting every bit of dust and fluff available and so becoming less like ink and more of a black, or rather blue-black, sludge.)
A.W.O.L.
- Absent WithOut Leave, originally a military term.
'Then ho, for the trees, bearing 'mid snow and ice the banner with the strange device "Excelsior!" '
- referring to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem Excelsior.
Oliver Sipperley and the policeman's helmet
- are the events leading up to the story Without the Option.
'... the heart ... was more or less bowed down with weight of woe.'
- referring to a song from Bohemian Girl, Act 2, words by Alfred Bunn, music by Michael Balfe.
In statu pupillari
- under guardianship, especially as a pupil (e.g. as at boarding school).
'Try to imagine the Albert Hall falling on the Crystal Palace ...'
- the Royal Albert Hall is a large concert hall in South Kensington, London, opened in 1871. The Crystal Palace was glass and iron building erected in 1851 for the Great Exhibition and which was moved to Bromley in Kent. It burned down in 1936.
A murrain on her
- a curse on her.
Collect
- a short prayer assigned to a particular day.