Dotty doings in distant Hampshire. His Uncle Fred (Lord Ickenham) wants Pongo to marry American Sally Painter, a not very successful sculptor in Chelsea. They had been engaged, but she had broken it off when Pongo refused to smuggle jewellery into America for a friend of hers. Now he has got engaged to Hermione Bostock, a bossy, bookish beauty whom Bill Oakshott, just returned from Brazil, had hoped to marry. Bill is the real owner of Ashenden Manor, but his uncle, Sir Aylmer Bostock, ex-Colonial Governor, is a short-tempered cuckoo in the nest, proposing to stand for Parliament. As a JP he sentences Pongo and Sally to thirty days jug without the option, her only tort being pushing the local cop into a duck-pond.

Pongo is not a success with Hermione's parents. And Bill Oakshott, disappointed lover, sees Pongo kissing the housemaid, who is engaged to the local policeman, who is bossed by his sister. Wouldn't you know it - Potter the policeman had arrested Pongo and Uncle Fred that day at the dog-races and remembered them by sight and their false names.

Since Lady Ickenham is away, Lord Ickenham wades in gratefully to spread sweetness and light. He had been at school with 'Mugsy' Bostock and had given him six with a fives bat then for bullying. Blackmail, lying, impersonation, knock-out drops, arrests: stealing, breaking and substitution of busts, one of which contains jewellery for smuggling. Preparations for the Ashenden fete, and a Bonny Baby Competition. The curate gets measles, and spreads it around.

This is our first meeting with the eccentric Major Brabazon Plank, leader of the Brazilian expedition of which Bill Oakshott was a member. (Here Plank is a cricketer: in Stiff Upper Lip (1963) he is a rugger fanatic. ) He had been at school with 'Barmy' (Uncle Fred) and 'Mugsy' and his name had been 'Bimbo'. Barmy and Bimbo talk Mugsy into dazed humility and repentance, and the right couples kiss and make up: policeman Potter and housemaid Elsie Bean, Pongo and Sally, Bill and Hermione. Uncle Fred had taught Bill the 'Ickenham Method' of wooing (polite violence and sex) and when Bill sees a man kissing Hermione and goes into action, Hermione gives the memorable yowl, 'Don't kill him, Bill. He's my publisher!'

A brilliantly sustained rattle of word-perfect dialogue and narrative topping a very complicated and well-controlled plot.

Source: Richard Usborne. Plum Sauce. A P G Wodehouse Companion.