Service With a Smile

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Service With a Smile

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First published in US: October 15 1961 by Simon & Schuster, New York
First published in UK: August 17 1962 by Herbert Jenkins, London

Russian translations

Rad sluzhit' by N. Trauberg: 1995, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2022 2022
Usluga s ulybkoj by M. Gilinskij: 1999

Blandings Castle is very far being an eartly paradise.

Persecuted by Lasy Constance, who has just given away his favorite hat, harried by his new secretary and various unwanted guests, Lord Emsworth is not a happy man. To top it all the Church Lads's Brigade is camped by the lake and Lord Emsworth has caught some of the boys teasing his beloved pig the Empress. It's fortunate that Uncle Fred, whose speciality is spreading sweetness and ligth, is at hand to soothe his troubled brow. But not before further mayhem has descended on Blandings.

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Service With a Smile

Click for enlarge book cover

Characters

Clarence, 9th Earl of Emsworth — 61 year old Old Etonian who loves flowers and the Empress
Beach — Lord Emsworth's butler for 18 years
Voules — Lord Emsworth's chauffeur
Alaric, Duke of Dunstable — Large, stout, bald-headed man who thinks everyone is potty
George — Lord Emsworth's 12 year old grandson who is interested in moving pictures
Lady Constance Keeble — Lord Emsworth's dominating sister who is in love with James Schoonmaker
James Schoonmaker — Wealthy American friend of Connie's who loves her
Lavender Briggs — Lord Emsworth's current secretary who is tall and haughty. Used to work for Lord Tilbury and wants to start a typewriting agency. Lord Emsworth fires her for wanting to steal the Empress.
Myra Schoonmaker — Pretty, slim daughter of James who loves Bill
Empress of Blandings — Lord Emsworth's 3 time winner of the fat pig class
George Cyril Wellbeloved — Once again Lord Emsworth's pigman
(Stinker) George Pyke, Lord Tilbury — Owner of the Mammoth Publishing Company. Keeps a piggery on his estate in Buckinghamshire and wants the Empress.
Archie Gilpin — Alaric's good looking nephew who works for the Mammoth Publishing Company. An artist who loves Millicent.
Pongo Twistleton — Uncel Fred's nephew
(Uncle Fred) Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham — A good friend of James and a recent friend of Lord Emsworth who solves all problems at Blandings
(Bill) The Rev. Cuthbert Bailey — A curate in love with Myra, went to Harrow and Oxford with Pongo, goes to Blandings under the name of Meriwether
Millicent Rigby — Lord Tilbury's current secretary who loves Archie
G. Ovens — Proprietor of the Emsworth Arms
Jno. Robinson — Market Blandings' only cabdriver
Claude Murphy — Constable in Market Blandings
Herbert Binstead (*)
Ricky Gilpin (*)
Basil Glossop (*)
Lady Ickenham (*)
Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe (*)
Maudie Beach Stubbs (*)
Percy (*)
Freddie Threepwood (*)
Wolff-Lehmann (*)

Synopsis

Lord Emsworth is sorely tried. He has got Wellbeloved back as pig-man, but Connie has got him, as secretary, Lavender Briggs, who irritates him. The horrible Duke of Dunstable has invited himself to stay at the castle again. And Connie has allowed the Church Lads Brigade to camp in the castle grounds, squealing, throwing crusty rolls at his top-hat, making him jump into the lake fully dressed to save a boy, who turns out to be a log of wood. And Connie has brought Myra Schoonmaker, daughter of an American millionaire, down to the castle as, left in her care in London, Myra has fallen in love, and tried to elope, with a penniless curate, Rev. 'Bill' Bailey. Connie invites the Duke's nephew, Archie Gilpin, down to keep Myra company and help her to forget her curate.

At the opening of Parliament Lord Emsworth meets Lord Ickenham, who says he will come and sort things out, bringing with him a young friend, Cuthbert Meriwether, from Brazil (alias of the Rev. Bill Bailey, Myra's beloved).

Keep an eye on Lavender Briggs. She needs £500 to start her own secretarial bureau; and blackmail comes easy to her to that end. Keep an eye on the horrible Duke. He's out to steal the Empress and sell her to Lord Tilbury, who has long coveted her for his farm in Bucks. The plots thicken so fast now that at one stage Lord Emsworth, whose grandson has secretly photographed him secretly cutting the guy-ropes of the Church Lads' tent, and who is now held to ransom for his crime, is prepared to buy his own thrice-medalled pig back from the Duke, his guest, for £3,000. Wellbeloved is sacked and re-reinstated. Myra's widower father will marry widow Constance Keeble. Bill Bailey will marry Myra. Lavender

Briggs has got her £500. Archie Gilpin, who needs £1,000 to buy into his cousin Ricky's onion soup bar, gets that and rejoices.

All thanks to Lord Ickenham's virtuoso counter-plotting. He has spread sweetness and light all around except to the horrible Duke.

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

Copyright Michel Kuzmenko (gmk), The Russian Wodehouse Society © 1996-2023. Established 04/04/1996.