The Intrusion of Jimmy, 1910
This is a very early novel by P.G. Wodehouse, the world's greatest 20th century humor writer. How early? Our star-crossed lovers, Jimmy and Molly, meet on the Lusitania.
Well, not meet exactly: Jimmy, our hero is a man of independent means but miscalculated his travel plans. As he explained to his pal, Arthur:
"We didn't really meet at all."
"Just happened to be going to the same spot, eh?"
"As a matter of fact, it was like this. Like a fool, I'd bought a second-class ticket."
"What? Our young Rockerbilt Astergould, the boy millionaire, traveling second-class! Why?"
"I had an idea it would be better fun. Everybody's so much more cheery in the second cabin. You get to know people so much quicker. Nine trips out of ten, I'd much rather go second."
"And this was the tenth?"
"She was in the first-cabin," said Jimmy.
The British class system, firmly in place in 1910 when the novel was published, separated our two young lovers with an impossible barrier. So struck by Molly was Jimmy he couldn't even find the courage to speak to her "across the railing" that embodied the first-class aristocracy from the unwashed masses of second class.
Molly is the daughter of New York Police Captain John McEachern a thoroughly corrupt cop:
For his ambition was as large as his fist and as aggressive as his jaw. He had entered the force with the single idea of becoming rich, and had set about achieving his object with a strenuous vigor that was as irresistible as his mighty locust-stick. Some policemen are born grafters, some achieve graft, and some have graft thrust upon them. Mr. McEachern had begun by being the first, had risen to the second, and for some years now had been a prominent member of the small and hugely prosperous third class, the class that does not go out seeking graft, but sits at home and lets graft come to it.
Wodehouse paints the entire police force as on the take. It looks like ACAB was a reality in 1910 as much as it is today. Having "earned" a staggering amount of wealth Captain McEachern and Molly decamp to England to live lives of luxury. They end up at Deever Castle, home of Hildebrand Spencer Poynt de Burgh John Hannasyde Coombe-Crombie, twelfth Earl of Dreever, "Spennie" to his friends. Nature had equipped his Lordship "with one of those cheap-substitute minds. What passed for brain in him was to genuine gray matter as just-as-good imitation coffee is to real Mocha."
Through a series of unlikely events, Jimmy is also invited to the Castle and hijinks ensue. The plot is ridiculous, as all Wodehouse plots are. We have not one, but two couples yearning to be together but foiled by parents or uncles. We have not one, but two detectives posing as guests to protect the diamond necklace of Lady Julia, matriarch of the house. Spennie is hapless, his uncle is ruthless. Molly is independent and willful as is Jimmy, our unflappable hero. And just as you think all is lost, everything falls neatly into place and love conquers all. As it should.
Wodehouse is still finding his stride with this one. His plots require a breakneck pace so the reader doesn't notice how absurd they are. In this book, the speeches and conversations are just a little too long, the pacing is not quite perfect, and the characters aren't quite well-sketched as they would be with Blanding Castle and Jeeves and Wooster novels. Still, well worth a read.
Free ebook: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4075
Free audiobook: https://librivox.org/the-intrusion-of-jimmy-by-p-g-wodehouse/
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