Read Young Men in Spats Online
Authors: P G Wodehouse
11 THE FIERY WOOING OF MORDRED
Meet the Young Men in Spats â all members of the Drones Club, all crossed in love and all busy betting their sometimes nonexistent fortunes on unlikely outcomes â that's when they're not recovering from driving their sports cars through rather than round Marble Arch.
These stories are the essence of innocent fun. In them you'll encounter some of Wodehouse's favourite characters â including, for the first time, his future hero Uncle Fred. The collection is widely regarded as one of Wodehouse's best and includes one of his own favourites, âThe Amazing Hat Mystery'.
Pelham Grenville Wodehouse (always known as âPlum') wrote more than ninety novels and some three hundred short stories over 73 years. He is widely recognised as the greatest 20th century writer of humour in the English language.
Wodehouse mixed the high culture of his classical education with the popular slang of the suburbs in both England and America, becoming a âcartoonist of words'. Drawing on the antics of a near-contemporary world, he placed his Drones, Earls, Ladies (including draconian aunts and eligible girls) and Valets, in a recently vanished society, whose reality is transformed by his remarkable imagination into something timeless and enduring.
Perhaps best known for the escapades of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves, Wodehouse also created the world of Blandings Castle, home to Lord Emsworth and his cherished pig, the Empress of Blandings. His stories include gems concerning the irrepressible and disreputable Ukridge; Psmith, the elegant socialist; the ever-so-slightly-unscrupulous Fifth Earl of Ickenham, better known as Uncle Fred; and those related by Mr Mulliner, the charming raconteur of The Angler's Rest, and the Oldest Member at the Golf Club.
Wodehouse collaborated with a variety of partners on straight plays and worked principally alongside Guy Bolton on providing the lyrics and script for musical comedies with such composers as George Gershwin, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter. He liked to say that the royalties for âJust My Bill', which Jerome Kern incorporated into Showboat, were enough to keep him in tobacco and whisky for the rest of his life.
In 1936 he was awarded The Mark Twain Medal for âhaving made an outstanding and lasting contribution to the happiness of the world'. He was made a Doctor of Letters by Oxford University in 1939 and in 1975, aged 93, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He died shortly afterwards, on St Valentine's Day.
To have created so many characters that require no introduction places him in a very select group of writers, lead by Shakespeare and Dickens.
Aunts Aren't Gentlemen
The Adventures of Sally
Bachelors Anonymous
Barmy in Wonderland
Big Money
Bill the Conqueror
Blandings Castle and Elsewhere
Carry On, Jeeves
The Clicking of Cuthbert
Cocktail Time
The Code of the Woosters
The Coming of Bill
Company for Henry
A Damsel in Distress
Do Butlers Burgle Banks
Doctor Sally
Eggs, Beans and Crumpets
A Few Quick Ones
French Leave
Frozen Assets
Full Moon
Galahad at Blandings
A Gentleman of Leisure
The Girl in Blue
The Girl on the Boat
The Gold Bat
The Head of Kay's
The Heart of a Goof
Heavy Weather
Hot Water
Ice in the Bedroom
If I Were You
Indiscretions of Archie
The Inimitable Jeeves
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Jeeves in the Offing
Jill the Reckless
Joy in the Morning
Laughing Gas
Leave it to Psmith
The Little Nugget
Lord Emsworth and Others
Louder and Funnier
Love Among the Chickens
The Luck of Bodkins
The Man Upstairs
The Man with Two Left Feet
The Mating Season
Meet Mr Mulliner
Mike and Psmith
Mike at Wrykyn
Money for Nothing
Money in the Bank
Mr Mulliner Speaking
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Mulliner Nights
Not George Washington
Nothing Serious
The Old Reliable
Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin
Piccadilly Jim
Pigs Have Wings
Plum Pie
The Pothunters
A Prefect's Uncle
The Prince and Betty
Psmith, Journalist
Psmith in the City
Quick Service
Right Ho, Jeeves
Ring for Jeeves
Sam me Sudden
Service with a Smile
The Small Bachelor
Something Fishy
Something Fresh
Spring Fever
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Summer Lightning
Summer Moonshine
Sunset at Blandings
The Swoop
Tales of St Austin's
Thank You, Jeeves
Ukridge
Uncle Dynamite
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Uneasy Money
Very Good, Jeeves
The White Feather
William Tell Told Again
Young Men in Spats
The World of Blandings
The World of Jeeves
The World of Mr Mulliner
The World of Psmith
The World of Ukridge
The World of Uncle Fred
Wodehouse Nuggets (edited by Richard Usborne)
The World of Wodehouse Clergy
The Hollywood Omnibus
Weekend Wodehouse
The Golf Omnibus
The Aunts Omnibus
The Drones Omnibus
The Jeeves Omnibus 1
The Jeeves Omnibus 3
The Parrot and Other Poems
Wodehouse on Wodehouse (comprising Bring on the Girls, Over Seventy, Performing Flea)
Yours, Plum
IT WAS THE
hour of the morning snifter, and a little group of Eggs and Beans and Crumpets had assembled in the smoking-room of the Drones Club to do a bit of inhaling. There had been a party of sorts overnight, and the general disposition of the company was towards a restful and somewhat glassy-eyed silence. This was broken at length by one of the Crumpets.
âOld Freddie's back,' he observed.
Some moments elapsed before any of those present felt equal to commenting on this statement. Then a Bean spoke.
âFreddie Who?'
âFreddie Widgeon.'
âBack where?'
âBack here.'
âI mean, back from what spot?'
âNew York.'
âI didn't know Freddie had been to New York.'
âWell, you can take it from me he has. Or else how,' argued the Crumpet, âcould he have got back?'
The Bean considered the point.
âSomething in that,' he agreed. âWhat sort of a time did he have?'
âNot so good. He lost the girl he loved.'
âI wish I had a quid for every girl Freddie Widgeon has loved and lost,' sighed an Egg wistfully. âIf I had, I shouldn't be touching you for a fiver.'
âYou aren't,' said the Crumpet.
The Bean frowned. His head was hurting him, and he considered that the conversation was becoming sordid.
âHow did he lose his girl?'
âBecause of the suitcase.'
âWhat suitcase?'
âThe suitcase he carried for the other girl.'
âWhat other girl?'
âThe one he carried the suitcase for.'
The Bean frowned again.
âA bit complex, all this, isn't it?' he said. âHardly the sort of stuff, I mean, to spring on personal friends who were up a trifle late last night.'
âIt isn't really,' the Crumpet assured him. âNot when you know the facts. The way old Freddie told me the story it was as limpid as dammit. And what he thinks â and what I think, too â is that it just shows what toys we are in the hands of Fate, if you know what I mean. I mean to say, it's no good worrying and trying to look ahead and plan and scheme and weigh your every action, if you follow me, because you never can tell when doing such-and-such won't make so-and-so-happen â while, on the other hand, if you do so-and-so it may just as easily lead to such-and-such.'
A pale-faced Egg with heavy circles under his eyes rose at this point and excused himself. He said his head had begun to throb again and he proposed to step round to the chemist on the corner for another of his dark-brown pick-me-ups.
âI mean to say,' resumed the Crumpet, âif Freddie â with the best motives in the world â hadn't carried that suitcase for that
girl, he might at this moment be walking up the aisle with a gardenia in his buttonhole and Mavis Peasemarch, only daughter of the fifth Earl of Bodsham, on his arm.'
The Bean demurred. He refused to admit the possibility of such a thing, even if Freddie Widgeon had sworn off suitcases for life.
âOld Bodders would never have allowed Mavis to marry a bird of Freddie's calibre. He would think him worldly and frivolous. I don't know if you are personally acquainted with the Bod, but I may tell you that my people once lugged me to a week-end at his place and not only were we scooped in and shanghaied to church twice on the Sunday, regardless of age or sex, but on the Monday morning at eight o'clock â eight, mark you â there were family prayers in the dining-room. There you have old Bodders in a nutshell. Freddie's a good chap, but he can't have stood a dog's chance from the start.'
âOn the contrary,' said the Crumpet warmly, âhe made his presence felt right from the beginning to an almost unbelievable extent, and actually clicked as early as the fourth day out.'
âWere Bodders and Mavis on the boat, then?'
âThey certainly were. All the way over.'
âAnd Bodders, you say, actually approved of Freddie?'
âHe couldn't have been more all over him, Freddie tells me, if Freddie had been a Pan-Anglican Congress. What you overlook is that Bodsham â living, as he does, all the year round in the country â knew nothing of Freddie except that one of his uncles was his old school-friend, Lord Blicester, and another of his uncles was actually a Bishop. Taking a line through them, he undoubtedly regarded Freddie as a pretty hot potato.'