Butlers and the Buttled I forget how it all ended. They could not have shot the man, or I should have seen it in the papers. They could not have given him notice for they had not the courage. I imagine they talked things over, and one night, having made sure that he was asleep, they all packed their suitcases and sneaked away somewhere out west.

(click image to enlarge)

Butlers and the Buttled I forget how it all ended. They could not have shot the man, or I should have seen it in the papers. They could not have given him notice for they had not the courage. I imagine they talked things over, and one night, having made sure that he was asleep, they all packed their suitcases and sneaked away somewhere out west.

Leslie Illingworth (1902-1979)

Price

£850

Signed

Signed
Inscribed with title and magazine title below mount

Medium

Pencil and watercolour on board

Dimensions

12 x 18 inches

Illustrated

Piccadilly, April 1929, 'Butlers and the Buttled' by P G Wodehouse

P G Wodehouse’s essay, ‘Butlers and the Buttled’, first appeared in the magazine, Piccadilly, in April 1929, and was collected in the volume, Louder and Funnier, published by Faber in 1932. It mourns the decline in the quality of butlers, and also suggests – in the passage illustrated here – that it can be so difficult to get rid of one, once employed, that it is easier to ‘sneak away’ and leave him behind.

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