"The Custody of the Pumpkin" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It first appeared in the U.S. in the 29 November 1924 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and in the UK in the December 1924 issue of Strand Magazine. Part of the Blandings Castle canon, it features the absent-minded peer Lord Emsworth, and was included in the collection Blandings Castle (1935), although the story takes place sometime between the events of Leav...
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"The Custody of the Pumpkin" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse. It first appeared in the U.S. in the 29 November 1924 issue of The Saturday Evening Post, and in the UK in the December 1924 issue of Strand Magazine. Part of the Blandings Castle canon, it features the absent-minded peer Lord Emsworth, and was included in the collection Blandings Castle (1935), although the story takes place sometime between the events of Leave it to Psmith (1923) and Summer Lightning (1929).
Lord Emsworth, enjoying the views around his castle with a telescope on the turret above the west wing, spies his younger son Freddie Threepwood kissing a girl in a spinney by the end of the water-meadow. Enraged, he confronts the young man, who reveals the girl is named Aggie, and is a "sort of cousin" of Head Gardener Angus McAllister. Emsworth demands that McAllister send the girl away, but the angered Scotsman hands in his notice.
Realising that McAllister's deputy Robert Barker is not up...
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