A Gentleman of Leisure

By P. G. Wodehouse When Jimmy Pitt, a proper gentleman of leisure, makes a bet that he can successfully burgle a house, he unexpectedly finds himself in the presence of the only girl he could ever love and her crooked police-captain father.  A year later, after a chance encounter leads to an invitation to a castle in the English countryside, Jimmy and the quick-fingered Spike Mullins find themselves under the same roof as that same lovely girl, her formidable father—and a necklace worth one hundred thousand dollars. Leaving nothing straightforward and no path too smooth, Wodehouse sends A Gentleman of Leisure and its cast—including the formidable Lady Julia Blunt, the blundering but charming Lord Spennie Dreeves and not one but two detectives—stumbling from one comedy to the next. Jimmy leaned back in his chair and spoke calmly, but with decision. “Any man of ordinary intelligence,” he said, “could break into a house.”   Sir Pelham Grenville (P. G.) Wodehouse (1881–1975) was an Engli