"Uncle Fred Flits By" is a short story by British comic writer P. G. Wodehouse, which was published in the United States in the July 1935 edition of Redbook, and in the United Kingdom in the December 1935 issue of the Strand. It was included in the collection Young Men in Spats (1936).
The story is part of the main Drones Club canon. It features club member Pongo Twistleton and his mischievous Uncle Fred. Pongo and Uncle Fred would go on to appear in four novels, including making two visits to Blandings Castle.
In the story, Uncle Fred manages to gain access to a house to use as shelter after he and Pongo get caught in the rain. When relatives of the house's owner come to speak with him about a family drama concerning a young couple, Uncle Fred naturally involves himself in their affairs, leaving Pongo no choice but to play along.
Plot
At the Drones Club, a Crumpet and his guest see Pongo Twistleton looking distraught. The Crumpet explains that Pongo has learned his mischievous Uncle Fred, Lord Ickenham, is coming to London, and tells the following story about what happened the last time Uncle Fred came.
Uncle Fred suggests to his nephew that they visit a suburb, Mitching Hill, formerly an estate owned by an uncle when he was younger. They go there, but get caught in a shower of rain and take shelter in a doorway.
The door is opened by a maid, and Uncle Fred, finding the owners are away, gains access to the house by posing as someone come to clip the parrot's claws, with Pongo introduced as his assistant Mr Walkinshaw. The maid leaves on an errand, and Uncle Fred makes himself comfortable. A pink-faced man visits the house looking for Mr Roddis. Uncle Fred claims to be Mr Roddis and introduces Pongo as his son Douglas. The visitor is Wilberforce Robinson, an eel-jellier, who is in love with Roddis's wife's estranged sister Connie Parker's daughter Julia, but is disapproved of by the family as being beneath them socially. He has come to Mr Roddis for help. When Julia arrives with her parents, Uncle Fred suggests Robinson hide behind the sofa to avoid trouble.
The Parkers enter, and Uncle Fred introduces Pongo as a deaf veterinarian attending to the parrot. Julia's parents tell the story of the eel-jellier wooing their daughter, and Julia insists she loves him, on which the man leaps from behind the couch and kisses her. Uncle Fred criticizes the Parkers' insistence that their family is superior to Robinson's by claiming that various cousins and uncles made their money in immoral and even criminal ways. Though Mrs Parker denies all, Robinson sees it as vindication of his own family background, and claims all he needs is a hundred pounds to buy a share in a business. Uncle Fred provides the money at once, and Robinson and Julia leave delighted.
Uncle Fred and Pongo leave the Parkers drinking a reviving cup of tea after their bizarre ordeal, and in the street meet Mr Roddis, the owner of the house. Uncle Fred introduces himself as a neighbour Mr J. G. Bulstrode, and Pongo as his brother-in-law, Percy Frensham. He tells Roddis two people broke into his house, pointing through the window to the tea-drinking couple, and advises Roddis to call the police. Though Uncle Fred is pleased with his actions, Pongo is shaken by his uncle's mischief. Thus, concludes the Crumpet, is Pongo's demeanour - on hearing he has to face another visit from his uncle - explained.
Style
Wodehouse makes use of various stylistic devices in his stories to create humour. One of the devices Wodehouse employs is the pun, as in the following quote from "Uncle Fred Flits By": "It won't be long," said the girl, "before Wilberforce suddenly rises in the world."She never spoke a truer word. At this very moment, up he came from behind the settee like a leaping salmon.
Background
Wodehouse's childhood experiences in Victorian Croydon inspired Uncle Fred's memories from childhood of the fictional Mitching Hill, which Uncle Fred recalls was once open country before becoming a suburb.
Wodehouse was fond of parrots, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s, he kept pet parrots on and off. In addition to "Uncle Fred Flits By", he included a parrot in the short story "Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner".
Publication history
In the American women's magazine Red Book (which became Redbook in May 1943), the story was illustrated by James Montgomery Flagg. The story was illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson in the Strand. In April 1948, the story appeared in a Swedish literary magazine, translated by Birgitta Hammer and illustrated by Kjell Wiborgh. In August 1955, the story appeared in Playboy with illustrations by Jerry Warshaw.