NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON An Autobiographical Novel By P. G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook 1907 CONTENTS PART ONE _Miss Margaret Goodwin’s Narrative_ CHAPTER 1 JAMES ARRIVES CHAPTER 2 JAMES SETS OUT CHAPTER 3 A HARMLESS DECEPTION PART TWO James Orlebar Cloyster’s Narrative CHAPTER 1 THE INVASION OF BOHEMIA CHAPTER 2 I EVACUATE BOHEMIA CHAPTER 3 THE ORB CHAPTER 4 JULIAN EVERSLEIGH CHAPTER 5 THE COLUMN CHAPTER 6 NEW YEAR’S EVE CHAPTER 7 I MEET MR. THOMAS BLAKE CHAPTER 8 I MEET THE REV. JOHN HATTON CHAPTER 9 JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET CHAPTER 10 TOM BLAKE AGAIN CHAPTER 11 JULIAN’S IDEA CHAPTER 12 THE FIRST GHOST CHAPTER 13 THE SECOND GHOST CHAPTER 14 THE THIRD GHOST CHAPTER 15 EVA EVERSLEIGH CHAPTER 16 I TELL JULIAN Sidney Price’s Narrative CHAPTER 17 A GHOSTLY GATHERING CHAPTER 18 ONE IN THE EYE CHAPTER 19 IN THE SOUP CHAPTER 20 NORAH WINS HOME Julian Eversleigh’s Narrative CHAPTER 21 THE TRANSPOSITION OF SENTIMENT CHAPTER 22 A CHAT WITH JAMES CHAPTER 23 IN A HANSOM Narrative Resumed CHAPTER 24 A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS CHAPTER 25 BRIGGS TO THE RESCUE CHAPTER 26 MY TRIUMPH PART ONE _Miss Margaret Goodwin’s Narrative_ CHAPTER 1 JAMES ARRIVES I am Margaret Goodwin. A week from today I shall be Mrs. James Orlebar Cloyster. It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other’s acquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July in the middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty yards from the shore. Fermain Bay is in Guernsey. My home had been with my mother for many years at St. Martin’s in that island. There we two lived our uneventful lives until fate brought one whom, when first I set my eyes on him, I knew I loved. Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to write that down. But what does it matter? It is for no one’s reading but my own. James, my _fiancé_, is _not_ peeping slyly over my shoulder as I write. On the contrary, my door is locked, and James is, I believe, in the smoking-room of his hotel at St. Peter’s Port. At that time it had become my habit to begin my day by rising before breakfast and taking a swim in Fermain Bay, which lies across the road in front of our cottage. The practice—I have since abandoned it—was good for the complexion, and generally healthy. I had kept it up, moreover, because I had somehow cherished an unreasonable but persistent presentiment that some day Somebody (James, as it turned out) would cross the pathway of my maiden existence. I told myself that I must be ready for him. It would never do for him to arrive, and find no one to meet him. On the 28th of July I started off as usual. I wore a short tweed skirt, brown stockings—my ankles were, and are, good—a calico blouse, and a red tam-o’-shanter. Ponto barked at my heels. In one hand I carried my blue twill bathing-gown. In the other a miniature alpenstock. The sun had risen sufficiently to scatter the slight mist of the summer morning, and a few flecked clouds were edged with a slender frame of red gold.