Jeeves Takes Charge

"Jeeves Takes Charge" is a short story written by P. G. Wodehouse. It was first published in the United States in The Saturday Evening Post on 18 November 1916, and in the United Kingdom in the April 1923 edition of Strand Magazine. Its first book publication was in Carry on, Jeeves in 1925. In 1995 Recorded Books recorded the book onto cassette tape narrated by Alexander Spencer.

Bertie Wooster narrates, recalling Jeeves's first days as his valet. Bertie had been staying at Easeby, his Uncle Willoughby's estate in Shropshire, with his valet Meadowes, and had been forced to return to London in search of a new valet after having observed Meadowes stealing his silk socks. At the time, he was engaged to Lady Florence Craye, who upon his departure from Easeby had given him a thick and complicatedly intellectual book entitled Types of Ethical Theory, expecting him to read it in the week before his return.

In his London flat, Bertie picks up the volume and begins to read it, feeling achy and suffering from "morning head", but is interrupted by the arrival of Jeeves, a new valet sent by the local agency. Bertie is immediately impressed by Jeeves's manner of walking: he "floated noiselessly through the doorway like a healing zephyr", a sharp contrast to Meadowes's flat-footed clumping.

Jeeves, observing Bertie's painful state of mind, goes directly to the kitchen and returns with a drink on a tray, suggesting that Bertie drink it. It consists, he explains, of Worcester sauce for colour, raw egg for nutrition, and red pepper for bite, among other ingredients. Bertie willingly swallows the contents of the glass, and feels a change immediately. He felt as if everything in the world is just fine.

Jeeves notices a likeness of Lady Florence on Bertie's mantelpiece and comments on the eccentricity of her father, Lord Worplesdon, whose employ he left when his lordship insisted on dining in dress trousers, a flannel shirt, and a shooting coat. Bertie reveals to Jeeves that he is engaged to Florence; though Jeeves replies courteously, Bertie detects "a certain rummy something about his manner", and assumes that it must be due to Lady Florence's being somewhat imperious with the domestic staff.

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