The Ordeal of Young Tuppy

"The Ordeal of Young Tuppy"
Author P. G. Wodehouse
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Series Jeeves
Genre(s) Comedy
Publisher The Strand Magazine
Media type Print (Magazine)
Publication date April 1930
Preceded by "Indian Summer of an Uncle"
Followed by Thank You, Jeeves

"The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" 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 April 1930, and in Cosmopolitan in the United States that same month, both as "Tuppy Changes His Mind". The story was also included as the eleventh story in the 1930 collection Very Good, Jeeves.[1]

In the story, Tuppy Glossop falls for the athletic Miss Dalgleish, and endures a rough match of rugby football to win her over. Bertie's Aunt Dahlia wants Tuppy to lose interest in Miss Dalgleish and reunite with her daughter, Angela Travers.

Plot

Jeeves packs for Bertie's upcoming visit to Bleaching Court, where Bertie hopes to use practical jokes to get revenge on Tuppy Glossop for tricking him into falling into the Drones Club swimming pool. Bertie gets a puzzling telegram from Tuppy, asking Bertie to bring Tuppy's football boots and an Irish water-spaniel to Bleaching Court. He is then visited by his Aunt Dahlia, who has heard that her daughter Angela's on-and-off fiancé Tuppy is flirting with an athletic girl named Miss Dalgleish who lives near Bleaching. The girl is fond of dogs; Bertie supposes Tuppy wants an Irish water-spaniel to give her as a gift. Aunt Dahlia wants Tuppy to go back to Angela. Jeeves says he will attend to the matter.

At Bleaching Court, Bertie gives Tuppy the football boots, but no Irish water-spaniel, which disappoints Tuppy. Tuppy is going to play in an upcoming football match for Miss Dalgleish. Jeeves tells Bertie that the local football match, which pits two feuding villages, Upper Bleaching and Hockley-cum-Meston, against each other, is traditionally violent. However, Tuppy is eager to prove himself to Miss Dalgleish, despite Bertie's misgivings. Tuppy is in love with her. Bertie asks Jeeves to go to London and send a telegram, signed by his aunt, which says that Angela is seriously ill and keeps calling for Tuppy. Bertie plans to give Tuppy the telegram during a lull in the match, so that Tuppy will have seen how rough the football match is and then hurry back to Angela.

Until this moment, if asked, I would have said that Tuppy Glossop was, on the whole, essentially a pacific sort of bloke, with little or nothing of the tiger of the jungle in him. Yet here he was, running to and fro with fire streaming from his nostrils, a positive danger to traffic.

— Bertie is impressed by Tuppy[2]

Bertie receives the fake telegram sent by Jeeves. The rugby football match begins, and Tuppy gets knocked down frequently. However, Bertie mistakenly left the telegram at the house. After a brief rest, Tuppy plays splendidly. Later, Bertie returns to his room and meets Jeeves. Bertie reports that he failed to deliver the telegram and, since Tuppy played so well, Miss Dalgleish is probably impressed by him.

However, Tuppy is upset when he comes to see Bertie. Despite the ordeal he went through for her, Miss Dalgleish did not even watch the game. She had received a telephone call from London from someone who had found an Irish water-spaniel. Bertie finally gives Tuppy the telegram. Tuppy is moved by the fake message, and goes to Angela. Bertie asks Jeeves if he was the one who called Miss Dalgleish about the Irish water-spaniel, and he was. Jeeves also explained the telegram to Aunt Dahlia, so everything will be ready for Tuppy's arrival. Bertie toasts with Jeeves to his success.

Background

Wodehouse had trouble writing this story, as he mentioned in a letter he wrote to his friend William Townend. In the letter, dated 11 November 1929, Wodehouse explained that the story involved a big comic scene: "It's a village Rugger match, where everybody tries to slay everybody else, described by Bertie Wooster who, of course, knows nothing about Rugger. It's damned hard to described a game you know backwards through the eyes of somebody who doesn't know it. However, I suppose it will come. These things always do."[3]

Publication history

The story was illustrated by Charles Crombie in the Strand and by James Montgomery Flagg in Cosmopolitan.[4]

"The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" was featured in the 1958 collection Selected Stories by P. G. Wodehouse, published by The Modern Library.[5]

The 1935 anthology The Great Book of Humour, published by Odhams, included the story.[6]

Adaptations

Television

This story was adapted into the Jeeves and Wooster episode "Wooster with a Wife", the sixth episode of the second series, which first aired on 19 May 1991.[7] There are some changes in plot, including:

  • In the episode, there is no mention of the Drones Club pool incident, and Bertie does not want to play practical jokes on Tuppy for revenge.
  • In the original story, Bertie is unwilling to get a dog for Tuppy since he is upset about the Drones Club pool incident; in the episode, Jeeves cannot find an Irish water-spaniel, and instead acquires an Irish Wolfhound for Tuppy.
  • In the original story, Tuppy and Angela quarrel because Tuppy told her that her new hat made her look like a Pekingese; in the episode, Tuppy told her that her new hat made her look like a raccoon peering out from underneath a flowerpot.
  • Tuppy does not become as formidable a player in the episode as he does in the original story, and his leg gets broken in the episode.

Radio

"The Ordeal of Young Tuppy" was adapted into a radio drama in 1976 as part of the series What Ho! Jeeves starring Michael Hordern as Jeeves and Richard Briers as Bertie Wooster.[8]

References

Notes
  1. ↑ Cawthorne (2013), p. 84.
  2. ↑ Wodehouse (2008) [1930], chapter 11, p. 291.
  3. ↑ Wodehouse, P. G. (2013). Ratcliffe, Sophie, ed. P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters. W. W. Norton & Company. p. 196. ISBN 978-0786422883.
  4. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 148, D17.47, and p. 185, E133.160.
  5. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 120, B11a.
  6. ↑ McIlvaine (1990), p. 196, E87.
  7. ↑ "Jeeves and Wooster Series 2, Episode 6". British Comedy Guide. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
  8. ↑ "What Ho! Jeeves: The Ordeal of Young Tuppy". BBC Genome Project. Retrieved 18 November 2017.
Sources
  • Cawthorne, Nigel (2013). A Brief Guide to Jeeves and Wooster. London: Constable & Robinson. ISBN 978-1-78033-824-8.
  • 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.
  • Wodehouse, Pelham Grenville (2008) [1930]. Very Good, Jeeves (Reprinted ed.). London: Arrow Books. ISBN 978-0099513728.
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