Jeeves and the Kid Clementina
| "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina" | |
|---|---|
| Author | P. G. Wodehouse |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Jeeves |
| Genre(s) | Comedy |
| Publisher | The Strand Magazine |
| Media type | Print (Magazine) |
| Publication date | January 1930 |
| Preceded by | "The Spot of Art" |
| Followed by | "The Love That Purifies" |
"Jeeves and the Kid Clementina" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in January 1930, and in Cosmopolitan in the United States that same month. The story was also included as the seventh story in the 1930 collection Very Good, Jeeves.
Bertie goes to the annual Drones Club golf tournament at Bingley-on-Sea, where his Aunt Agatha's friend Miss Mapleton runs a girl's school, St. Monica's. Bertie wants to avoid Miss Mapleton. Jeeves disapproves of Bertie's new bright plus-fours and his plan to join Bobbie Wickham's party in Antibes in summer. On the pier, Bertie and Jeeves see Bobbie, who is visiting her cousin Clementina ("Clem"). Bobbie gets Bertie to give her and Clementina dinner and take them to the movies.
Afterwards, before Bertie is to bring Clementina back to school, Bobbie reveals that Clementina goes to St. Monica's, and she is not supposed to be out of school. Bobbie outlines how Bertie must sneak Clementina back into school: Bertie will take flower-pots from the school's conservatory, then climb a nearby tree, tie a string to a pot, balance the pot over a branch overhanging the conservatory ceiling, then move away and jerk the string from a distance. The pot will break the glass, someone will come out to investigate, and while the door is open, Clem will sneak in and go to bed.
Bertie tells Jeeves that Clementina is away without leave. Jeeves tries to propose his own solution, but Bertie, wishing to prove himself, shushes Jeeves. Instead, Bertie presents Bobbie's plan as his own, and adds that Jeeves will guide the kid inside after the glass is smashed. As Bertie approaches the school, he regrets ignoring Jeeves, but he proceeds. A policeman catches Bertie up the tree. Jeeves appears and tells the officer that Bertie had come to call on Miss Mapleton, but was pursuing intruders he spotted in the garden. To verify this story, the policeman brings them to Miss Mapleton. To Bertie's astonishment, she confirms Jeeves's story. The flower-pot, which Bertie left balancing on the branch, falls and crashes loudly into the glass ceiling, but Miss Mapleton attributes this to the intruders Jeeves told her about.
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