The "P," I should add for your guidance, is silent, as in "phthisis," "psychic" and "ptarmigan."

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Psmith Will Help You

Psmith Is Ready for Anything

DO YOU WANT

Someone To Manage Your Affairs?

Someone To Manage Your Business?

Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?

Someone To Assassinate Your Aunt?

PSMITH WILL DO IT

CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO

Whatever Job You Have To Offer

(Provided It Has Nothing To Do With Fish)

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Address Applications To 'R. Psmith, Box 365'

LEAVE IT TO PSMITH!

Meet Psmith (the 'P' is silent), the most amazing P.G. Wodehouse character ever created, in my opinion. He was at one point merely Smith, but considered himself far too remarkable to be simply Smith, and found Smythe a poor substitution, as were any names ending in -Smith. The P is for originality. Psmith is a dandy - this is really the only word to describe him.

Jeeves is my dad's hero, Psmith is mine. We (my family and I) first met Psmith in Leave it to Psmith where he travels to Blandings Castle after placing the above ad in the paper. Young Freddie Threepwood needs someone to pinch (steal) his aunt's necklace, so he can become a bookie for horse racing. His Aunt Connie's husband Joe, needs money to buy his daughter (who is estranged from her step-mother Connie) and her husband a farm. Psmith does not object to crime. Also, the husband is a long-time friend of Psmith.

Enter Eve Halliday: A beautiful girl sheltering from the rain so she will not spoil her new hat (which she has just spent all of her money on) must have an umbrella! Psmith instantly dashes to the rescue, "borrowing" Lord Walderwick's umbrella, the best in the umbrella rack, for that express purpose. Later on, Eve to ends up at Blandings to catalog the library, where Psmith begins wooing her, with some success, though rather against her will.

"The only thing you have against me is that I am not Ralston McTodd, and think how comparatively few people are Ralston McTodd!" Indeed Psmith has been impersonating Ralston McTodd, the famous Canadian poet who had the genius to write "across the pale parabola of joy" which puts so many innocent chaps to sleep. Unfortunately, Psmith has eyes only for Miss Halliday, who thinks he is McTodd, who has recently left her good friend Cynthia. Another mess for our dandy, who handles everything with the greatest calm, and gets out of scrapes in the most genius and fluid ways imaginible.

Now Psmith has only to snatch Lady Constance's diamond necklace (a rather easy task), but then, what to do with the body? Or rather, where to hide them until they can be exchanged for money. Soon we have the blithering Lord Emsworth's secretary Baxter locked out in his lemon-colored pajamas digging through flowerpots - and throwing them through windows in order to wake someone in order to regain access to the house. Unfortunately, it is rather culturally unacceptable to be throwing flowerpots through peoples' windows at three or so in the morning and, taken for insane, Baxter is promptly dismissed.

So what has become of the necklace? And what about our friend Edward Coots who has shown up with his best friend his revolver also claiming to be McTodd, or his thief friend Aileen Peevy - also staying at the castle disguised as a poet, and both after Lady Connie's necklace! Will Eve fall to our hero's conquests?

If you haven't read this book, both King County and Pierce County libraries have it, as a book or on tape. Get it. seriously, you will love it. This is one of my favorite books ever. Get it on tape, read by Jonathan Cessil - he's the BEST!!!