Unable to refuse to help a friend, Bertie is placed in one difficult

situation after another, always under the watchful eye of his butler.

Jeeves constantly works in the background, undermining Bertie's autonomy

and moving the narrative in unexpected directions. He often fails to

let his employer in on his plots, and a large proportion of his schemes

turn out to expose Bertie to ridicule.

Yet Jeeves also ensures that Bertie's life runs smoothly, steering him

through the pitfalls which face a rich young man with too much time

on his hands. When in one story Bertie overhears Jeeves describing his

employer as "not intelligent", he sets out to disprove the butler's

assessment. If it is predictable that things do not go according to

plan, then it is Wodehouse's brilliant grasp of comedy which makes the

manner in which things go wrong so constantly surprising. And, of course,

by the end of the tale Jeeves has proved himself both inimitable and

indispensable.