Gally, Beach and others have bet their savings on the Empress for a third win in succession in the Fat Pigs Class at the Shropshire Show. Now Sir Gregory Parsloe, having already lured Wellbeloved away from Lord Emsworth for higher wages as pig-man, has bought a super-fat pig, Queen of Matchingham - legally, but unethically - to run against the Empress. Monica Simmons, Lord Emsworth's new pig-girl, turns out to be Sir Gregory's niece. Gally and Lord Emsworth are sure Sir Gregory will try to nobble the Empress so that the Queen may win the Silver Medal. Beach's widowed niece, Maudie Stubbs, once barmaid at the Criterion, had been going to marry young 'Tubby' Parsloe, but they had missed each other at the wedding. Now Sir Gregory is engaged to Gloria Salt, a lithe tennis player who has ordered him to diet drastically, or else ... Penny Donaldson, younger sister of Freddie Threepwood's wife, Aggie, is at the castle. Lady Constance wants her to marry Orlo, Lord Vosper, handsome, serious, rich, a tennis player (who had been engaged to Gloria Salt, but they had quarrelled about poaching on court). Penny is in love with Jerry Vail, writer of thrillers, and they need £2,000 for Jerry to take over a health farm. Gloria, asked by Lady Constance to find Lord Emsworth a secretary, produces Jerry Vail, who used to be something of a boyfriend of hers.

Sir Gregory's butler goes to the village chemist to buy half a dozen bottles of Slimmo for his master. Gally hears of this and is sure it is meant for thinning the Empress. The battle-lines are drawn and it develops into snatch and counter-snatch of pigs, the castle commando being Gally, Penny and Beach. They bring Maudie Stubbs, who has inherited a detective agency from the late Stubbs, down to watch over the Empress's cause, and they infiltrate her into the castle as being a friend of Penny's millionaire (American) father. Lord Emsworth's foolish heart goes out to Maudie in a letter (which has to be retrieved quick when Lord Emsworth discovers she is an ex-barmaid and ... more embarrassing ... niece of his butler - he'd have to call his butler 'Uncle Sebastian'). Well, Lord Emsworth, thinking that Jerry has restored the Empress to her sty, writes the necessary £2,000 cheque for him and Penny to start in on the health farm. Orlo Vosper and Gloria Salt become a mixed double again and Sir Gregory proposes again to dear Maudie, who will become Lady Parsloe, and will work on the principle that the way to a Bart's heart is through his stomach. Beach, having been in the Market Blandings police lock-up for half an hour, gets £500 hush-money from Lady Constance for his pains. The Queen consumes six bottles of Slimmo and the Empress wins the Silver Medal for the third time running. The local newspaper celebrates the event in expert verse.

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