Plot
The story begins when Uncle Fred knocks off Sir Raymond Bastable’s top hat with a Brazil nut fired through the window of the Drones Club from a catapult. Sir Raymond naturally assumes that the culprit was a young Drone, but is unsure how to respond. A letter to the Times would open him to ridicule, especially as he is about to stand for Parliament. Uncle Fred suggests writing a novel exposing the iniquities of the younger generation. The eventual novel, “Cocktail Time”, which Bastable publishes under a pseudonym, becomes a succès de scandale after being condemned by a bishop. Afraid of being unmasked as the author, Bastable allows his ne’er-do-well nephew Cosmo Wisdom to take the credit, and the royalties, of the book. But, with his friend Gordon “Oily” Carlisle, and Oily’s wife Gertie, Cosmo plots to blackmail Sir Raymond, and to this end writes a letter revealing the true author of “Cocktail Time”. Much of the rest of the book is concerned with various characters’ attempts to get hold of the letter.
The action moves to Dovetail Hammer, Berks, where Uncle Fred is staying with his godson Johnny Pearce. Johnny is in love with Belinda Farringdon, but needs £500 in order to marry her. Uncle Fred resolves to help, but for the time being is more concerned with retrieving the letter. It so happens that Sir Raymond Bastable is also living in Dovetail Hammer, with his sister Phoebe Wisdom, Cosmo’s mother, and Sir Raymond’s butler, Albert Peasemarch, as tenants of Johnny Pearce. Albert is secretly in love with Phoebe.
Oily travels to Dovetail Hammer and attempts to blackmail Sir Raymond, but Uncle Fred manages to extract the letter by posing as Inspector Jervis of the Yard. Cosmo then discovers that the movie rights of the book could be worth a fortune, and he decides he’d like to be its author after all. So he needs to get the letter back, and proceeds to Dovetail Hammer.
Uncle Fred unwisely gives the letter to Albert Peasemarch for safekeeping, but Albert gives the game away after one too many pints at the Beetle and Wedge. So Cosmo gets the letter back. But then Gertie coshes him and grabs the letter. Oily and Gertie hide it in an imitation walnut cabinet, but this is taken away to be auctioned. Oily and Cosmo bid against each other for the cabinet but, needless to say, Uncle Fred had previously removed the letter. He then engages in a little mild blackmail himself, and extracts £500 from Sir Raymond in return for the letter. This is passed to Johnny, who can now marry Belinda. Sir Raymond gets the movie rights to “Cocktail Time”, and marries his longtime admirer Barbara Crowe, while Albert marries Phoebe. Sweetness and light all round.
Read more about this topic: Cocktail Time
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Ends in themselves, my letters plot no change;
They carry nothing dutiable; they won’t
Aspire, astound, establish or estrange.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“We have defined a story as a narrative of events arranged in their time-sequence. A plot is also a narrative of events, the emphasis falling on causality. “The king died and then the queen died” is a story. “The king died, and then the queen died of grief” is a plot. The time sequence is preserved, but the sense of causality overshadows it.”
—E.M. (Edward Morgan)
“The plot was most interesting. It belonged to no particular age, people, or country, and was perhaps the more delightful on that account, as nobody’s previous information could afford the remotest glimmering of what would ever come of it.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)