"Then it's all right. You deserve it!"
"Deserve it?"
"Deserve to marry a girl like me. I was worried about it, but now
I see that it's the only punishment bad enough for you!" She
raised her arm.
"Here's the dead past, Jimmy! Go and bury it! Good-night!"
A small book fell squashily at Jimmy's feet. He regarded it dully
for a moment. Then, with a wild yell which penetrated even to Mr.
Pett's bedroom and woke that sufferer just as he was dropping off
to sleep for the third time that night he bounded for the gallery
stairs.
At the further end of the gallery a musical laugh sounded, and a
door closed. Ann had gone.
--------------------------------
Transcriber's Notes for edition 11:
I am greatly indebted to the Wodehouse readers from the BLANDINGS
e-mail group who did such detailed research on this text, not only
on simple typos but on the differences between the 1916 Saturday
Evening Post serialization and the US and UK early printings.
I have made use, in this new PG edition, of the 1918 UK first edition
references provided by these helpful savants, to correct misprints or
other publisher's errors in the US edition, but I have otherwise
followed the US edition.
The punctuation is somewhat different from the UK versions, notably in
its use of colons. The words "Uncle" and "Aunt", where used with a name
("Uncle Peter", "Aunt Nesta"), were capitalized in the original
serialized and UK editions, but lower-cased in the US edition, so I have
retained the lower-case.
I have also restored some _italics_ omitted in the previous PG edition.
I note below some significant differences between the early printings:
Chapter II:
""Well played, sir!" when they meant "'at-a-boy!""
"mean" is in the US edition; other editions have "meant".
Chapter VI:
"Regent's bill-of-fare" has been corrected from "Regent's bill-of-fair"
in the US edition.
"pull some boner" has been corrected from "pull some bone"
in the US edition.
Chapter VIII:
"Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted.
It was a perfectly astounding likeness, but it was
apparent to him when what he had ever heard and read
about doubles came to him."
This is a somewhat clumsy construction, and quite un-Wodehousian.
The original passage in the serialization read:
"Before his stony eye the immaculate Bartling wilted. All that
he had ever heard and read about doubles came to him."
--------------------------------
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account