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50 pages 1 hour read

P. G. Wodehouse

The Code of the Woosters

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1938

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Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 10 Summary

As expected, Madeline has summoned Wooster to tell him that because of the leg-fondling incident, her engagement to Gussie is off, and she’s now ready to make Wooster “happy.” She derides the bookish, newt-studying Gussie as a “satyr” and doesn’t believe Wooster’s tortuous explanation of why Gussie was frisking Stiffy’s leg—especially after her thorough search of the cow creamer yields no notebook. Dazed and bewildered by this last development, Wooster wanders into the hall and encounters Roderick Spode pounding on the door of Gussie’s bedroom. Wielding the power of “Eulalie,” Wooster deals him a sharp reprimand. Spode, seeking to justify his desire to “break [Gussie’s] neck,” shows him the missing notebook, which is full of malicious comments about himself and Sir Watkyn. Elated to have this elusive document in his hands at last, Wooster pockets it and sends Spode away. He then hands it to Gussie, who “fawns” over Wooster and rushes off to show it to Madeline.

Feeling that a “great weight” has lifted from his shoulders, Wooster returns to his room and tells Jeeves that he can begin packing for their departure from Totleigh Towers. His relief is such that he elects not to reprimand Jeeves for putting him through the ordeal of asking Sir Watkyn for Stiffy’s hand in marriage, which nevertheless worked out perfectly for all concerned. His serenity, however, is ruptured when Gussie reappears, announcing that the wedding is off once again.

Chapter 11 Summary

Moaning that life without Madeline will not be worth living, Gussie toys with another, darker idea for using Wooster’s sheets, which are still knotted together from Gussie’s attempt to escape out the window. Eventually, he reveals the cause of his latest “row” with Sir Watkyn, which ended his engagement to Madeline: Having accidentally broken the aquarium where he was keeping his newt specimens, Gussie moved the newts into Watkyn’s bathtub, thinking they would be safe there for the night. However, Watkyn, upset over his niece’s engagement to Harold, went to take a late bath and was astounded to find his tub full of “tadpoles,” which he quickly washed down the drain. Gussie, who had been conducting in-depth studies of the newts’ mating habits, exploded at him, calling him many abusive names and (worst of all) referring to his beloved cow creamer as “Modern Dutch.” This last comment gives Wooster an idea: He suggests that Gussie steal the creamer and hold it for ransom until Watkyn renews his approval of the marriage. However, Jeeves throws a little cold water on this plan, announcing that Watkyn has just posted Constable Oates to stand guard over the creamer. However, he suggests that Gussie “lure” Oates away from his post by telling him that Wooster has his stolen helmet—which, he adds, the officer already suspects. From the “cordiality” he detected between Wooster and Stiffy after the terrier’s attack on him, Oates believes that Wooster stole the helmet as a way of wooing her, accidentally dropping her love gift to him (her glove) at the scene.

Gussie throws Jeeves’s plan into action, telling Oates that he has seen the helmet in Wooster’s possession. Now, once Oates leaves his post to ask Watkyn’s permission to search Wooster’s room, Gussie can steal the unguarded creamer. Gussie’s only regret, he tells Wooster, is that, in his rage over the newts, he gave his notebook of insults to Watkyn as a coup de grace. Wooster, thunderstruck, tries to explain to his ever-obtuse friend that insults shouted in rage are far more forgivable than those cold-bloodedly recorded, over a period of days, in writing. Gussie’s only hope, he says, is to get the notebook back before Watkyn has a chance to read it. Gussie sidles off reluctantly, whereupon Jeeves returns with the disturbing news that Constable Oates has been punched in the nose while trying to prevent a “dim figure” from stealing Watkyn’s cow creamer. His attacker was a second mysterious person, whose well-timed punch allowed both to get away clean. Jeeves and Wooster deduce that the attacker was Harold Pinker, who presumably was never told that Stiffy’s plan had changed. Jeeves adds that, in Oates’s opinion, the first figure—the thief—was Wooster himself. While the latter is still digesting this, Aunt Dahlia bursts into the room, clutching the stolen cow creamer, which she tells Wooster to hide.

Chapter 12 Summary

Wooster bolts a glass of brandy, struggling to control his anger, while his aunt describes her hair’s-breadth escape from Oates, which she personally found quite exhilarating. Wooster fills her in on the latest hard facts, including that Oates will soon be searching his room for the helmet. Escape seems impossible. Just then, Gussie returns, having failed in his mission: Sir Watkyn has already read the notebook and is hot on his trail with a riding crop. His only hope, he thinks again, is to escape out the window on knotted sheets and then borrow Wooster’s car to drive back to London. Dahlia, who intensely dislikes Gussie, encourages this plan, hoping he’ll break his neck. Jeeves seconds the idea and further suggests that Gussie take Wooster’s suitcase with him to London. Wooster instantly reads his meaning and presses the suitcase, with the stolen creamer inside, into Gussie’s hands.

With Jeeves’s and Wooster’s assistance, Gussie clambers down the knotted sheet, making a clean getaway. Wooster collapses gratefully into a chair, believing that Sir Watkyn’s “sinister house” can’t possibly hold any more “shocks” for him. Moments later, however, he suffers another gasping shock when Jeeves discovers Constable Oates’s stolen helmet in the room, concealed in another suitcase.

Chapters 10-12 Analysis

For Wooster and his friends, the precipitous ups and downs continue, with every triumph or lucky break eclipsed and upended by another heart-stopping setback. Even Wooster and Madeline, the two most honest people at Totleigh Towers, can reach no accord: She refuses to believe his story of Gussie’s innocence, and when she finally looks in the cow creamer for the notebook, it’s not there, convincing her that it never existed. Wooster fears, justly, that the notebook will find its way into Sir Watkyn’s hands, dealing him his third consecutive shock of the evening, perhaps one more than the old man can survive. Luckily, Spode finds it first, and Wooster’s relief when he wrenches the fabled notebook away from the angry Spode is so great that he likens himself to Archimedes, eyes aglow, discovering the principle of displacement.

A more apt comparison might be to a horse in a steeplechase, nimbly clearing one hedge after another—but then falling ignominiously into a ditch. Gussie, having used Wooster’s “miraculous” eureka to patch things up with Madeline, can’t leave well enough alone: Over the loss of his beloved newts, he flies into a rage at his future father-in-law, insults the cow creamer, and then seals his fate by handing Watkyn the incriminating notebook. As the story nears its conclusion, the twists and reversals come ever more fast and furious. Again, a plot is laid to steal the creamer, which in this country-set tale is beginning to resemble the serpent in the garden: the root of all conflict, greed, and broken dreams. Its cow shape alludes to a major theme in this novel and in several other Wooster-Jeeves stories: Subversion of Pastoral Comedy. The cow-shaped creamer is a motif that alludes to Wodehouse’s parodies of traditional “pastoral comedy”: Rather than idealize the country as an unsullied bower of romance, tranquility, and simple values, Wodehouse lampoons it as a false Eden of avarice, pettiness, extortion, and thievery.

Constable Oates is posted to guard the cow creamer, but Jeeves has a plan to lure him away via the news that Wooster has his stolen helmet. This helmet, the story’s third “MacGuffin,” has already found its way into Wooster’s room, although he and Jeeves don’t know it. Then, Aunt Dahlia appears with the creamer and peremptorily orders them to hide it. All their plans, however carefully laid, lead straight back to their door. Ironically, Wooster’s honesty, known to all his friends, leads Stiffy and Dahlia to consider his room the safest place to ditch their stolen goods. A central joke of the Jeeves stories is that, partly because of his guilelessness, Wooster is always left holding the bag. This time, he’s left holding the helmet, and the price may not be a five-pound fine but a month in prison.

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