Bertie Wooster has lost his brooch. Well, not his brooch but the one his Aunt Agatha has asked him to bring down from London to Steeple Bumpleigh as a birthday present for his ex-fiancée, Florence Craye. And he hasn’t really lost it, though as the lights go up we find him believing that he has—and he will actually lose it a few minutes later, necessitating the dispatch of Jeeves to London to buy a replacement. Now, the only person in the world who terrifies Bertie more than Florence Craye is his Aunt Agatha, which explains his state of agitation at losing the brooch and his profound relief when Florence’s younger brother, the pestiferous Edwin the Boy Scout, returns it to him—though, as I say, he is not to keep it long. Thus, Bertie confides in the reader:
If I had not recovered this blighted trinket, I should never have heard the last of it. The thing would have marked an epoch. World-shaking events would have been referred to as having happened “about the time Bertie lost that brooch” or “just after Bertie made such an idiot of himself over Florence’s birthday present.” Aunt Agatha is like an elephant—not so much to look at, for in appearance she resembles more a well-bred vulture, but because she never forgets.
This passage is typical of the comic writing of Sir Pelham (“Plum”) Grenville Wodehouse, better known as P. G. Wodehouse on the title pages of the many books he
