Here we must say goodbye to Freddie Widgeon. He's off to Kenya with Sally (neé Foster) whose tip-tilted nose twitches like a rabbit's, with a £3,000 loan from old Mr Cornelius of Valley Fields, and the blessing of Sally's boss, best-seller Leila Yorke, who has found a long-lost husband, too.

But let's start at the start. Freddie, who has a lowly job in the solicitors' office of Shoesmiths (four of them), shares Peacehaven in Valley Fields with a policeman who was a college friend. Sally and Leila normally live in Sussex where 'Leila Yorke' turns out very successful 'predigested pap' (her own phrase) novels. Irked by the critics who refer to her stuff in much the same phrases, she decides to show them she can write a Hardy/Gissing type of novel too, 'grey as a stevedore's vest', if she can only find somewhere grey to live for a while for atmosphere. Bottleton East? No, says Freddie, they live for pleasure alone in Botdeton East. Come to grey, grey Valley Fields - the house next to mine is vacant etc., etc. So Leila and Sally come to Castlewood, which, as it happens, Soapy and Dolly Molloy had rented previously and where they had stashed some nice diamonds that Dolly had lifted off Mrs Oofy Prosser.

Soapy has been selling his dud 'Silver River' oil stock regardless of age or sex - to Leila, to Lord Blicester (Freddie's uncle), to Oofy Prosser (twice) and to Freddie. Lord Blicester as a young man, Rodney Widgeon, has been engaged to Leila, but she had broken it off because he got so fat. Oofy Prosser has the majority of the shares of Popgood and Grooly, the publishers of Leila's books. And so it goes, round and round. And it's just as well that Leila brought her shotgun to Valley Fields with her. Bang, bang, and Chimp Twist regrets he has taken up burglary again.

Wodehouse wrote that he thought Sam the Sudden was 'darned good'. So is Ice in the Bedroom. And Leila Yorke is a great addition to Wodehouse's beloved female bestsellers. She has been making £15,000 a year for the last fifteen years, has saved most of it and has sold her last novel to Hollywood for $300,000. And she is very funny about it all. The Aunt Dahlia of the book world.

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