"Jeeves and the Kid Clementina" is a short story by P. G. Wodehouse, and features the young gentleman Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves. The story was published in The Strand Magazine in the United Kingdom in January 1930, and in Cosmopolitan in the United States that same month. The story was also included as the seventh story in the 1930 collection Very Good, Jeeves.
In the story, Bobbie Wickham tells Bertie to sneak her cousin Clementina back into her boarding school, as Clementina is away from school without permission. Bobbie suggests using a method that involves a flower-pot and string.
Plot
Bertie goes to the annual Drones Club golf tournament at Bingley-on-Sea, where his Aunt Agatha's friend Miss Mapleton runs a girls' school, St. Monica's. Bertie wants to avoid Miss Mapleton. Jeeves disapproves of Bertie's new bright plus-fours and his plan to join Bobbie Wickham's party in Antibes in summer. On the pier, Bertie and Jeeves see Bobbie, who is visiting her cousin Clementina ("Clem"). Bobbie gets Bertie to give her and Clementina dinner and take them to the movies.
Afterwards, before Bertie is to bring Clementina back to school, Bobbie reveals that Clementina goes to St. Monica's, and she is not supposed to be out of school. Bobbie outlines how Bertie must sneak Clementina back into school: Bertie will take flower-pots from the school's conservatory, then climb a nearby tree, tie a string to a pot, balance the pot over a branch overhanging the conservatory ceiling, then move away and jerk the string from a distance. The pot will break the glass, someone will come out to investigate, and while the door is open, Clem will sneak in and go to bed.
Bertie tells Jeeves that Clementina is away without leave. Jeeves tries to propose his own solution, but Bertie, wishing to prove himself, shushes Jeeves. Instead, Bertie presents Bobbie's plan as his own, and adds that Jeeves will guide the kid inside after the glass is smashed. As Bertie approaches the school, he regrets ignoring Jeeves, but he proceeds. A policeman catches Bertie up the tree. Jeeves appears and tells the officer that Bertie had come to call on Miss Mapleton, but was pursuing intruders he spotted in the garden. To verify this story, the policeman brings them to Miss Mapleton. To Bertie's astonishment, she confirms Jeeves's story. The flower-pot, which Bertie left balancing on the branch, falls and crashes loudly into the glass ceiling, but Miss Mapleton attributes this to the intruders Jeeves told her about.
Later, Bertie asks Jeeves to explain what happened. Jeeves answers that he entered the school and asked to see Miss Mapleton; while the maid had gone to Miss Mapleton, Jeeves guided Clementina into the house unseen. Then he met Miss Mapleton and told her that Bertie was in the garden pursuing intruders. Bertie cancels his plan to join Bobbie at Antibes, and tells Jeeves that he may give away the plus-fours.
Style
Though Jeeves's speeches are usually short, he sometimes gives long verbose speeches which comically exaggerate his learning, and which he can use to deliberately confuse or impress someone. For example, in "Jeeves and the Kid Clementina", Jeeves gives a long speech to the constable who tries to arrest Bertie:
"I shall be delighted to accompany you, officer, if such is your wish. And I feel sure that in this connexion I may speak for Mr. Wooster also. He too, I am confident, will interpose no obstacle in the way of your plans. If you consider that circumstances have placed Mr. Wooster in a position that might be termed equivocal, or even compromising, it will naturally be his wish to exculpate himself at the earliest possible—""Here!" said the policeman, slightly rattled."Officer?""Less of it.""Just as you say, officer.""Switch it off and come along.""Very good, officer."