Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia has asked Jeeves to find a new cook. Bingo Little has asked him to find a new housemaid. Both Bertie and his aunt are invited to the Little's for dinner, but despite an excellent meal by their cook, Anatole, Bingo looks careworn and haggard.
Next day, he tells Bertie that his wife is writing an article for Dahlia's paper Milady's Boudoir which will cause him extreme embarrassment. Aunt D. meanwhile, has asked Jeeves to 'poach' the Little's cook.
| Bertie Wooster | |
| Jeeves | his valet |
| Dahlia Travers | Bertie's aunt |
| Tom Travers | her husband |
| George Wooster | Bertie's uncle (another one) |
| Bingo Little | a friend of Bertie |
| Mrs Little | his wife |
| A policeman | |
| A parlourmaid |
First published 21 February 1925 in the Saturday Evening Post (US).
Also published April 1925 in the Strand magazine.
Le Touquet
- the French resort town on the north coast once popular for its casino. PG later lived there for a few years.
Typhoon
- strictly, a tropical storm in the western Pacific.
Simoom
- a hot dry dust-laden wind blowing at intervals, especially in the Arabian desert.
Sirocco
- a hot, dusty wind blowing from north Africa across the Mediterranean.
Covent Garden
- London's main fruit, vegetable and flower market. In Wodehouse's time it was in the middle of London, just north of the Strand.
Hummer
- in this context, someone or something exceptionally good (British slang).
'... the year Bluebottle won the Cambridgeshire ...'
- the Cambridgeshire Handicap is a classic race run at Newmarket over the unusual distance of 9 furlongs (1 1/8 miles). The first was in 1839. I cannot find any reference to 'Bluebottle' which might be an invention.
Schopenhauer
- Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), German philosopher, usually seen as a pessimist.
Pollyanna
- an excessively cheerful person after the character in the novel of that name by Eleanor Porter.
St. John's Wood
- an area just to the north-west of the very centre of London, near Lord's cricket ground. The Abbey Road of Beatles fame runs through it.
The Borgias
- a family of fifteenth century Italians famed for their licentious and murderous behaviour. Poisoning was reputedly one of their methods for removing enemies.
Anatole's dishes
- see the separate page for my translations of the dishes listed.
Harrogate and Buxton
- two spa towns in Yorkshire and Derbyshire respectively.
'... the sword of what's-his-name'
- Damocles, a courtier at the court of Dionysius I. The king gave a banquet and had a sword suspended above Damocles' head by a single hair to illustrate the limits of power, i.e. that it brings dangers.
'... it's the edge.'
- here meaning that it's the limit, enough.
'... ask of me what you will, even unto half my kingdom.'
- Mark: Chapter 6, Verse 23.
Hurst Park
- a racecourse in Lancashire, roughly halfway between Liverpool and Manchester.
'He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who has suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consommé, and the dinner gong due any moment.'