P. G. Wodehouse--the initials stand for Pelham Grenville--is an
Englishman who divides his time between England and America and whose
audience unites the two countries more effectually than most
conscious fraternalizing. He writes short stories and novels with
equal success and he, Guy Bolton, and Jerome Kern have been
responsible for some of the pleasantest musical shows on Broadway.
Wodehouse is a consistent purveyor of light entertainment, but
sometimes, in one or two of his novels, he has shown serious emotion
touching for a moment some depth of character--to rise, the next, to
a surface of sparkle. His touch is usually exquisitely deft and no
one alive can make the farcically absurd situation more laughable.
And this he manages by restraint and understatement; as golfers say,
he never "presses" his stroke.
"The Custody of the Pumpkin," which was first published in the
Saturday Evening Post for November 29, 1924, is not only a typical
Wodehouse story, but concerns two of the principal characters in
Wodehouse's most popular novel, _Leave It to Psmith_. It is an
earlier episode in the saga of the amiably boneheaded Earl of
Blandings Castle and his heir.