The world has changed: World War 2 is done, and the nobility and hereditary peers are being dismantled by government policies and death duties. The idle rich cannot afford to be “idle” anymore, and oftentimes, are not rich anymore either.
Wooster is sent to an education camp for the nobility; he has to learn to darn his socks and iron his clothes. Jeeves takes up temporary employment with a friend of Wooster’s, a Bill Rowcestor, another nob with a vast mansion and no funds. Together with Jeeves, he starts silver ring bookmaker’s business under the assumed name of Honest Patch Perkins, complete with a disguise involving an eyepatch, garish clothes and fake whiskers.
Things begin to go wrong when a belligerent man wins a double at extremely long odds, and Bill has no funds to pay up. How Jeeves steps in and resolves the predicament to everyone’s satisfaction is the best part of the story.
The world is changing, and Wodehouse moved with the times. People perhaps didn’t have the patience to read about the shenanigans of the gentlemen of leisure, a dying breed often viewed as leeches. But he still managed to elicit a thoroughly enjoyable full length book based on the tribulations of these pariahs. Eminently readable.