"Aunt Agatha Takes the Count" (also published as "Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer") is a short story by
P. G. Wodehouse
Sir Pelham Grenville Wodehouse, ( ; 15 October 188114 February 1975) was an English author and one of the most widely read humorists of the 20th century. His creations include the feather-brained Bertie Wooster and his sagacious valet, Jeeve ...
, and features the young gentleman
Bertie Wooster
Bertram Wilberforce Wooster is a fictional character in the comedic Jeeves stories created by British author P. G. Wodehouse. An amiable English gentleman and one of the "idle rich", Bertie appears alongside his valet, Jeeves, whose intelligenc ...
and his
valet
A valet or varlet is a male servant who serves as personal attendant to his employer. In the Middle Ages and Ancien Régime, valet de chambre was a role for junior courtiers and specialists such as artists in a royal court, but the term "valet ...
Jeeves
Jeeves (born Reginald Jeeves, nicknamed Reggie) is a fictional character in a series of comedic short stories and novels by English author P. G. Wodehouse. Jeeves is the highly competent valet of a wealthy and idle young Londoner named Berti ...
. The story was published in ''
The Strand Magazine
''The Strand Magazine'' was a monthly British magazine founded by George Newnes, composed of short fiction and general interest articles. It was published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950, running to 711 issues, though the ...
'' in London in April 1922, and then in ''
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
'' in New York in October 1922. The story was also included in the 1923 collection ''
The Inimitable Jeeves
''The Inimitable Jeeves'' by P.G. Wodehouse was the first of the Jeeves novels, although not originally conceived as a single narrative, being assembled from a number of short stories featuring the same characters. The book was first published ...
'' as two separate chapters, "Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind" and "Pearls Mean Tears".
In the story, Bertie's overbearing
Aunt Agatha tries to get Bertie engaged to the respectable and dull Aline Hemmingway.
Plot
Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind
Bertie receives a letter from his aunt, Agatha Gregson, bidding him to join her at
Roville-sur-mer, a French resort. Bertie, who cannot disobey his intimidating Aunt Agatha, consoles himself with the hope of wearing a bright scarlet
cummerbund
A cummerbund is a broad waist sash, usually pleated, which is often worn with single-breasted dinner jackets (or ''tuxedos''). The cummerbund was adopted by British military officers in colonial India, where they saw it worn by sepoys (Indi ...
he bought.
At the resort, Bertie meets Aunt Agatha, who scolds Bertie for wasting his life and not being married. She has found a suitable match for him: Aline Hemingway. Aline then appears, along with her brother Sidney, a curate. Aunt Agatha introduces them to Bertie, who finds them dull.
In his room, Bertie cheers himself up by wearing his scarlet cummerbund. Jeeves disapproves of the cummerbund, but Bertie wears it anyway. Later, Bertie takes the unpleasant Hemingways for a drive. Afterwards, he asks Jeeves for help in escaping marriage to Aline, but Jeeves continues to disapprove of the cummerbund and gives no advice.
Pearls Mean Tears
Bertie tries to avoid the Hemingways, but Aline and Sidney come to see him. Sidney, distraught, confesses that he has gambled away the loan he received from a sympathetic parishioner, whom Sidney repaid with a cheque. When the cheque is not honoured by his bank, Sidney will be ruined. Aline begs Bertie for a loan. Bertie gladly agrees to, but then Aline also insists that Bertie take her pearl necklace as security. Though Bertie is reluctant, he gives them the money, and a receipt, in exchange for the case of the pearl necklace. The Hemingways thank Bertie and leave.
After Jeeves mildly reproaches Bertie's rashness, Bertie discovers that the necklace case is empty. Jeeves tells Bertie about a former employer who once gave a loan, with a pearl necklace as security, to a con man named Soapy Sid and his female accomplice. Soapy Sid swapped the case of pearls for an empty one, and used the receipt to demand reimbursement. Jeeves confirms that Sidney is Soapy Sid. Fortunately, Jeeves surreptitiously retrieved the case of pearls while helping Sidney with his jacket. Jeeves suggests that Bertie return the necklace to its owner, Aunt Agatha, and to make it clear to her that Aline was one of the thieves.
Bertie takes the necklace with him to Aunt Agatha's suite, where she is yelling at the hotel manager and accusing the chambermaid of stealing her necklace. Triumphantly, Bertie produces her pearls and rebukes her for mistreating him as well as the hotel staff. Later, Bertie gratefully gives Jeeves twenty pounds. He says that he will never wear the cummerbund again. Jeeves thanks him.
Publication history
In the original version of the story, Bertie goes to the hotel in France in an unsuccessful attempt to avoid his Aunt Agatha. At the hotel, he falls in love with Aline Hemingway on his own accord, only to be disillusioned later by her thievery. This was later altered when included in ''The Inimitable Jeeves''.
A. Wallis Mills provided illustrations for the story in the ''Strand''. T. D. Skidmore illustrated the story for ''Cosmopolitan'', in which the story was titled "Aunt Agatha Makes a Bloomer". The story was included in the 1981 collection ''Wodehouse on Crime'', which featured crime-related stories by Wodehouse and was published by
Ticknor & Fields
Ticknor and Fields was an American publishing company based in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded as a bookstore in 1832, the business would publish many 19th century American authors including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry James, ...
. A collection containing clergy-related Wodehouse stories, ''The World of Wodehouse Clergy'', also included this story. This collection was published in 1984 by
Hutchinson.
"Aunt Agatha Speaks Her Mind" was included in the 1948 anthology ''The Bedside Book of Humor: Many of the World's Funniest Stories, Poems, Skits and Cartoons'', published by Peoples Book Club, and in the 1955 anthology ''A Treasury of Humor and Toastmaster's Handbook'', published by
Grolier
Grolier was one of the largest American publishers of general encyclopedias, including '' The Book of Knowledge'' (1910), ''The New Book of Knowledge'' (1966), ''The New Book of Popular Science'' (1972), ''Encyclopedia Americana'' (1945), ''Acad ...
.
Adaptations
Television
The story was adapted into part of the ''
Jeeves and Wooster
''Jeeves and Wooster'' is a British comedy-drama television series adapted by Clive Exton from P. G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves" stories. It aired on the ITV network from 22 April 1990 to 20 June 1993, with the last series nominated for a Britis ...
'' episode "
Pearls Mean Tears
"Pearls Mean Tears" is the third episode of the second series of the 1990s British comedy television series ''Jeeves and Wooster''. It is also called "The Con". It first aired in the UK on on ITV.
In the US, the episode was aired as the first ...
", the third episode of the second series, which aired on 28 April 1991. Minor plot differences include:
* There is no mention of a cummerbund in the episode.
* Instead of being in his room when the Hemingways first approach him for a loan, in the episode Bertie is on the beach, having been buried up to his neck in the sand by Jeeves.
* In the episode, Jeeves arranges for the Hemingways to be caught by the police, who are called in by Aunt Agatha.
* In the episode, Aline is revealed to actually be married to Sidney, and Jeeves had never seen either of them before. Jeeves only begins to suspect them when he sees Sidney selling tips at the racecourse.
Radio
This story, along with the rest of ''The Inimitable Jeeves'', was adapted into a radio drama in 1973 as part of the series ''
What Ho! Jeeves
''What Ho! Jeeves'' (sometimes written ''What Ho, Jeeves!'') is a series of radio dramas based on some of the Jeeves short stories and novels written by P. G. Wodehouse, starring Michael Hordern as the titular Jeeves and Richard Briers as Berti ...
'' starring
Michael Hordern
Sir Michael Murray Hordern Commander of the Order of the British Empire, CBE (3 October 19112 May 1995)Morley, Sheridan"Hordern, Michael Murray (1911–1995)" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, 2004, online e ...
as Jeeves and
Richard Briers
Richard David Briers (14 January 1934 – 17 February 2013) was an English actor whose five-decade career encompassed film, radio, stage and television.
Briers first came to prominence as George Starling in ''Marriage Lines'' (1961–66), but ...
as Bertie Wooster.
References
;Notes
;Sources
*
*
*
External links
The Russian Wodehouse Society's page with numerous book covers and lists of characters
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aunt Agatha Takes the Count
1922 short stories
Short stories by P. G. Wodehouse
Works originally published in The Strand Magazine