Stylish Stouts

"Stylish Stouts"
Author P. G. Wodehouse
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Drones Club
Genre(s) Comedy
Publisher Playboy
Media type Print (Magazine)
Publication date April 1965

"Stylish Stouts" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse and part of the Drones Club canon. It was published in Playboy magazine in the US in April 1965, under the title "Stylish Stout", and also appeared in the London Evening Standard in December 1965 with the title "The Great Fat Uncle Contest".[1] The story was also included in the 1966 collection Plum Pie.[2]

In the story, Bingo Little wants to win prize money from the Drones Club Fat Uncles Sweepstakes after he loses money entrusted to him by his wife Rosie. He learns about the contest from a fellow club member, recurring character Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright.

Plot

In a flashforward, Purkiss, owner of the magazine Wee Tots that Bingo works for, asks Bingo if he has dinner plans. The story then truly starts when the actor Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright gives Bingo two tickets to his next show. Bingo's wife Rosie and their infant son Algy are away on a trip, so Bingo decides to ask his aunt, the widow Myrtle Beenstock, to join him. Her butler Wilberforce (also called Willoughby) says that Mrs. Beenstock is away but will return soon. Wilberforce recommends betting on the horse Whistler's Mother. After Rosie sends him ten pounds to put in Algy's bank account, Bingo bets it on Whistler's Mother. The horses loses its race.

Dejected, Bingo goes to the Drones Club. Catsmeat explains that the members are entering their uncles in the Fat Uncles Sweep, in which members buy tickets and are each randomly assigned an uncle. The person who draws the fattest uncle wins the jackpot, minus fifty pounds awarded to the winning uncle's nephew as prize money. Bingo wants to enter his stout Aunt Myrtle and sell the future prize money to the club millionaire Oofy Prosser for a smaller immediate payment, but only uncles are eligible. Later, Purkiss asks Bingo if he has dinner plans.

He looked as if he had been eating nothing but starchy foods since early boyhood, and it saddened Bingo to think of all this wonderful material going to waste. If only this man could have been his uncle, he felt wistfully. Oofy Prosser would have paid twenty pounds for a mere third of him.

— Bingo meets the stout Kirk Rockaway[3]

Purkiss wants the American author Kirk Rockaway, who is in London, to contribute to Wee Tots. Since Rockaway admires the novelist Rosie M. Banks, Bingo's wife, Purkiss provides Bingo ten pounds to give Rockaway dinner, and mentions that Rockaway is a teetotaler. Bingo dines with Rockaway, who is so stout that Bingo wishes Rockaway were his uncle. Since he enjoys Mrs. Little's books so much, Rockaway offers to pay for dinner. Bingo learns that Rockaway came all the way from Oakland, San Francisco hoping to marry Bingo's Aunt Myrtle, and advises Rockaway to gather the courage to propose by drinking champagne and stout.

A half hour later, Rockaway drunkenly insults a critic on the San Francisco Herald. Having forgotten about Rosie M. Banks, he tells Bingo to pay the bill. At Myrtle's house, Rockaway speaks brusquely to the butler who says that Mrs. Beenstock is not home yet. Rockaway hits a constable and gets arrested. Bingo learns that Myrtle married Sir Hercules Foliot-Foljambe during her trip. The butler shows Bingo a photograph of Sir Hercules, who is even larger than Rockaway. Ecstatic, Bingo borrows the photograph to show it to Oofy.

Background

In the story, Rosie mentions contributing to Algy's bank account a year prior, which occurred in the 1940 short story, "The Word in Season". The Fat Uncles sweepstakes featured in the story was first introduced in the 1958 short story, "The Fat of the Land".

"Whistler's Mother", the name of the horse that Bingo bets on, is derived from the painting of the same name.

The name of the butler in the story is initially Wilberforce, but is later Willoughby. This appears to be an error due to a change in the character's name, which was altered between the magazine and book versions of the story.[1] In the book Wodehouse in Woostershire by Wodehouse scholars Tony Ring and Geoffrey Jaggard, it is suggested that Wilberforce "was so embarrassed at tipping Whister's Mother that he changed his name to Willoughby in a rude and unsuccessful attempt to disguise himself".[4]

Publication history

The story was illustrated by Bill Charmatz in Playboy.[5]

"Stylish Stouts" was included in the 1966 collection Plum Pie and the 1982 collection Tales From the Drones Club.[6]

See also

References

Notes
  1. 1 2 Midkiff, Neil (7 December 2017). "The Wodehouse short stories". Archived from the original on 17 February 2007. Retrieved 8 February 2018.
  2. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 99-100, A89.
  3. ↑ Wodehouse (1968) [1966], chapter 6, pp. 131-132.
  4. ↑ Ring & Jaggard (1999), p. 278.
  5. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 154, D51.13.
  6. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), pp. 99-100, A89, and p. 126, B25a.
Bibliography
  • McIlvaine, Eileen; Sherby, Louise S.; Heineman, James H. (1990). P. G. Wodehouse: A Comprehensive Bibliography and Checklist. New York: James H. Heineman Inc. ISBN 978-0-87008-125-5.
  • Ring, Tony; Jaggard, Geoffrey (1999). Wodehouse in Woostershire. Chippenham: Porpoise Books. ISBN 1-870-304-19-5.
  • Wodehouse, P. G. (1968) [1966]. Plum Pie (Reprinted ed.). London: Pan Books Ltd. ISBN 978-0330022033.
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