NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON ***
Produced by Suzanne L. Shell, Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
NOT GEORGE WASHINGTON An Autobiographical Novel
by P. G. Wodehouse and Herbert Westbrook
1907
CONTENTS
PART ONE
_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_
1. James Arrives 2. James Sets Out 3. A Harmless Deception
PART TWO
_James Orlebar Cloyster's Narrative_
1. The Invasion of Bohemia 2. I Evacuate Bohemia 3. The _Orb_ 4. Julian Eversleigh 5. The Column 6. New Year's Eve 7. I Meet Mr. Thomas Blake 8. I Meet the Rev. John Hatton 9. Julian Learns My Secret 10. Tom Blake Again 11. Julian's Idea 12. The First Ghost 13. The Second Ghost 14. The Third Ghost 15. Eva Eversleigh 16. I Tell Julian
_Sidney Price's Narrative_
17. A Ghostly Gathering 18. One in the Eye 19. In the Soup 20. Norah Wins Home
_Julian Eversleigh's Narrative_
21. The Transposition of Sentiment 22. A Chat with James 23. In a Hansom
_Narrative Resumed by James Orlebar Cloyster_
24. A Rift in the Clouds 25. Briggs to the Rescue 26. My Triumph
PART ONE
_Miss Margaret Goodwin's Narrative_
CHAPTER 1
JAMES ARRIVES
I am Margaret Goodwin. A week from today I shall be Mrs. James Orlebar Cloyster.
It is just three years since I first met James. We made each other's acquaintance at half-past seven on the morning of the 28th of July in the middle of Fermain Bay, about fifty yards from the shore.
Fermain Bay is in Guernsey. My home had been with my mother for many years at St. Martin's in that island. There we two lived our uneventful lives until fate brought one whom, when first I set my eyes on him, I knew I loved.
Perhaps it is indiscreet of me to write that down. But what does it matter? It is for no one's reading but my own. James, my _fiancé_, is _not_ peeping slyly over my shoulder as I write. On the contrary, my door is locked, and James is, I believe, in the smoking-room of his hotel at St. Peter's Port.
At that time it had become my habit to begin my day by rising before breakfast and taking a swim in Fermain Bay, which lies across the road in front of our cottage. The practice--I have since abandoned it--was good for the complexion, and generally healthy. I had kept it up, moreover, because I had somehow cherished an unreasonable but persistent presentiment that some day Somebody (James, as it turned out) would cross the pathway of my maiden existence. I told myself that I must be ready for him. It would never do for him to arrive, and find no one to meet him.
On the 28th of July I started off as usual. I wore a short tweed skirt, brown stockings--my ankles were, and are, good--a calico blouse, and a red tam-o'-shanter. Ponto barked at my heels. In one hand I carried my blue twill bathing-gown. In the other a miniature alpenstock. The sun had risen sufficiently to scatter the slight mist of the summer morning, and a few flecked clouds were edged with a slender frame of red gold.
Leisurely, and with my presentiment strong upon me, I descended the steep cliffside to the cave on the left of the bay, where, guarded by the faithful Ponto, I was accustomed to disrobe; and soon afterwards I came out, my dark hair over my shoulders and blue twill over a portion of the rest of me, to climb out to the point of the projecting rocks, so that I might dive gracefully and safely into the still blue water.
