Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg
Bicky’s miserly uncle, a duke, arrives in New York believing his nephew is a business success, so Jeeves rents the duke out for handshakes and then turns the disaster into a salary.
📖 Read the full storyThe complete text (public domain in the US), then come back to check what you caughtBicky was supposed to be learning ranching in Colorado on his uncle’s allowance. Instead he has been idling in New York, and now the uncle, the Duke of Chiswick and the most tight-fisted man in England, is on a liner coming to stay with him. Jeeves lends him Bertie’s flat and a reputation, which works so well that the duke cuts off the allowance. The next idea is to charge Americans to shake hands with a duke.
What happens in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg
Bertie Wooster and Jeeves are on cool terms because Bertie has grown a moustache. Bertie’s friend Bicky, Francis Bickersteth, an amiable chump who was at Oxford with him, arrives in a panic. His uncle, the wealthy and famously tight-fisted Duke of Chiswick, sent him to Colorado to learn ranching in return for a monthly allowance, but Bicky stayed in New York and told his uncle he had found a good business opening there. Now the duke is arriving by ship to stay with him, and Bicky lives in a boarding-house. Jeeves, who already knows the whole story from the duke’s butler, proposes that Bertie lend Bicky his flat, with Jeeves posing as Bicky’s valet and Bertie as a guest. The duke arrives quarrelling with his cab driver over the fare and is amazed by the luxury; Bertie assures him Bicky is a business marvel. The plan works too well. Since Bicky is doing so well, the duke cancels his allowance. Bicky, who refuses to borrow from friends, dreams of starting a chicken farm. Jeeves suggests that Americans love shaking hands with famous people and might pay two or three dollars to meet a duke. For a week no one bites, apart from a delicatessen owner who wants to pay in sliced ham and an anarchist who wants to kick the duke. Then Jeeves meets a party of 87 businessmen from Birdsburg, Missouri, wearing “Boost for Birdsburg” buttons, and signs them all up for 150 dollars. The duke agrees to meet Bicky’s friends, as long as there are no reporters. But in the first group of ten, a suspicious man named Simms asks for proof that he is really a duke, and the fee comes out. The duke stops the reception, learns the truth, and refuses Bicky a penny. Jeeves then remarks that Bicky could sell the story of the afternoon to a Sunday newspaper. The duke, who dreads publicity, gives way and offers Bicky a secretary’s post in England, and Bicky holds out for five hundred pounds a year. Alone with Jeeves, Bertie asks for his shaving things and has the moustache removed.
Where and when Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg happens
Bertie’s New York flat
Lent to Bicky as if it were his own, it becomes the stage for the deception and then the reception room for the Birdsburg handshakes.
Bicky’s boarding-house
The cheap lodging Bicky really lives in, which he cannot let his uncle see.
Birdsburg, Missouri, offstage
The booming small town whose visiting businessmen want to shake hands with famous people and boast about their water supply.
A few months after Bertie arrives in America
The years of the transatlantic liners, when a duke arrives by ship and sends wireless messages ahead of him.
Timeline the story arc, beat by beat
- Setup Bicky’s secret
Bicky confesses that he skipped the Colorado ranch his uncle paid for, and now the duke is sailing to New York to stay with him.
- Rising The borrowed flat
Jeeves has Bertie lend Bicky his flat and poses as Bicky’s valet, and Bertie tells the duke his nephew is a business marvel.
- Turn Too convincing
Believing Bicky is prosperous, the duke cancels his allowance, leaving Bicky with nothing but a dream of a chicken farm.
- Rising A duke for hire
Jeeves proposes charging Americans to shake the duke’s hand, and after a slow week he signs up 87 men from Birdsburg, Missouri.
- Climax Are you a duke?
A suspicious visitor demands proof of the title, the fee is revealed, and the furious duke refuses Bicky a penny.
- Falling The Sunday paper
Jeeves suggests Bicky sell the story to a newspaper, and the duke, who hates publicity, offers him a paid post in England.
- End The moustache
Grateful, Bertie tells Jeeves to bring the shaving things and remove the moustache Jeeves has hated all along.
Characters and how they connect
Bertie Wooster
Narrator, a wealthy idle Englishman
A generous friend who longs to lend Bicky money he will not take, and who pays for Jeeves’s help with his moustache.
Jeeves
Bertie’s valet
A servant who learns everything through other servants, sees the duke as a property to be developed, and finds the one pressure that will open his purse.
Bicky
Francis Bickersteth, Bertie’s friend
A cheerful, penniless Englishman who imitates a bull-terrier beautifully, refuses on principle to borrow from friends, and believes hens will make him a fortune.
The Duke of Chiswick
Bicky’s uncle
A hugely wealthy aristocrat who owns half of London and argues with a New York cab driver over the fare, the hard-boiled egg of the title.
Simms
A visitor from Birdsburg
A stout, cold-eyed businessman who insists on proof that he is getting a real duke for his money and so brings the scheme down.
The Birdsburg spokesman
Leader of the visiting party
A friendly booster from Missouri who talks endlessly about his town’s new water supply and agrees to the handshake deal.
Character Relationships who connects to whom, and the themes that bind them
Family
Power / control
Friendship / ally
Connection
Themes in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg what the story is really about
Money and miserliness
The duke is enormously wealthy and spends nothing, so every move in the story is a contest over who will pay for what.
Appearance versus reality
A borrowed flat makes Bicky look prosperous, a valet changes employers for a week, and Simms asks the question no one else does: is the duke even real?
Titles as a commodity
Jeeves treats an English dukedom as something Americans will pay to touch, which mocks both the snobbery of the visitors and the value of the title itself.
Pride and principle
Bicky will not borrow from friends, and Bertie will not shave his moustache, but both principles give way when the right pressure is applied.
Symbols & motifs
The moustache
Bertie’s new moustache is his small rebellion against Jeeves, and shaving it off at the end is his payment and his surrender.
The hard-boiled egg
The American slang for a tough, unsentimental person, applied to the duke, sets an English aristocrat in an American frame from the title onward.
The chicken farm
Bicky’s plan multiplies hens without limit, a picture of the hopeful, foolish arithmetic of a young man who has never earned money.
The Boost for Birdsburg button
The loud badge Jeeves spots at the theater stands for American boosterism, the civic pride that makes the visitors eager to meet a duke.
Recurring motifs
Jeeves knows everything. Jeeves already knows Bicky’s secret, the duke’s family history and the ship he is on, because servants talk to servants.
The respectful cough. Jeeves announces himself with a cough before stepping in, and his best ideas arrive from the edge of the room.
Bicky’s hens. Bicky repeats his chicken-farm sums three times, each time more grandly, until they become his bargaining speech to the duke.
Conflicts
Person vs. person
Bicky and his uncle struggle over money, with the duke cutting the allowance and Bicky trying to win it back.
Person vs. person
Bertie and Jeeves carry on a silent dispute over the moustache, which colors every conversation between them.
Person vs. society
The scheme depends on American hunger to meet famous people, and it collapses on the American instinct to check what they are paying for.
Literary devices
- Comic narration by a cheerful outsider
- Bertie reports events he only half understands, such as Jeeves’s plan to develop the duke like property, and his puzzled tone lets the reader enjoy the cleverness he cannot follow.
- Mixed English and American slang
- Bertie’s club slang (“bally,” “what-ho,” “pip-pip”) sits beside American phrases he has picked up, like “hard-boiled egg” and “the market opened quietly,” so his language mirrors an Englishman soaking up New York.
- Simile and comic exaggeration
- Bicky rocks like a jelly in a high wind and rises like a rocketing pheasant, and Jeeves moves with as little uproar as a jellyfish. The images are drawn from the kitchen and the country house, Bertie’s natural world.
- Financial language for a social farce
- Bertie describes the handshake scheme as if it were a stock offering, with a market that opened quietly and the public not biting, which makes the duke into a share on sale.
- Reversal
- The deception meant to protect Bicky’s allowance destroys it, and the exposure of the deception wins him a better income than before.
Important quotes
“but when it comes to a valet’s staking out a claim on your upper lip you’ve simply got to have a bit of the good old bulldog pluck and defy the blighter.”
“He was what American chappies would call a hard-boiled egg.”
“Why, in no time you’d have the place covered knee-deep in hens, all laying eggs, at twenty-five cents for every seven.”
“I am taking the liberty of regarding his grace in the light of an at present—if I may say so—useless property, which is capable of being developed.”
“Mr. Bickersteth is an agreeable gentleman, but not bright.”
“He moves from point to point with as little uproar as a jelly fish.”
The ending of Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg, explained
The ending turns on publicity. When the handshake scheme collapses, the duke refuses to give Bicky anything. Jeeves then makes a quiet suggestion: Bicky could earn the money he needs by writing up the afternoon’s events for a lively Sunday newspaper. Earlier, the duke had made a point of asking whether there would be reporters at the reception and complained about being badgered by them on the ship, so Jeeves knows exactly where he is weakest. The idea of the papers printing the story of a duke rented out for handshakes is far worse to him than paying his nephew. He backs down at once, rules out the ranch, and offers Bicky a post as his secretary in England. When he suggests the post be unpaid, Bicky holds out for five hundred pounds a year, paid quarterly, and gets it, using the same hen arithmetic he has been repeating all story to argue that anything less would be a sacrifice. Back at the flat, Bertie feels Jeeves has not been properly rewarded. Jeeves says Bicky will show his thanks later, but Bertie decides on a larger gift and asks for his shaving things. The moustache, his act of defiance at the start, comes off. As in the other Jeeves stories in this collection, the real payment for Jeeves’s brains is Bertie’s obedience.
Common misreadings
MythBicky is a duke or a lord himself.
ActuallyHe is the son of the duke’s late sister and a Guards officer, so he has no title, which is exactly what makes Simms suspicious.
MythThe Birdsburg men pay up and the scheme makes money.
ActuallyPayment was not in advance, and the duke stops the reception after the first ten, so no money changes hands.
MythJeeves blackmails the duke directly.
ActuallyJeeves only suggests to Bertie that Bicky could sell the story to a newspaper. The duke hears it and draws his own conclusion.
Test yourself
1. Where was Bicky supposed to be living?
His uncle paid his allowance on condition that he learn ranching in Colorado, but he stayed in New York.
2. Why does the duke cancel Bicky’s allowance?
The borrowed flat and Bertie’s praise convince him that Bicky is prosperous.
3. Who signs up to shake hands with the duke?
Jeeves meets one of them at the theater and arranges a price of 150 dollars for the whole party.
4. What brings the handshake reception to a stop?
Simms asks why the duke’s nephew has no title, the fee is mentioned, and the duke learns the truth.
5. What does Bertie give Jeeves at the end as thanks?
Jeeves has disliked the moustache from the start, so letting him shave it is Bertie’s highest reward.
Bertie’s friend Bicky gets money every month from his wealthy, stingy uncle, a duke, but only because the uncle thinks Bicky is working on a ranch. Bicky has really been hanging around New York. When the uncle comes to visit, Jeeves lets Bicky pretend Bertie’s fancy apartment is his. The uncle is so impressed that he stops sending money. So Jeeves gets visitors to pay to shake hands with a real duke, but one of them asks for proof, and the uncle finds out. He is furious until Jeeves mentions that Bicky could sell the embarrassing story to a newspaper. The uncle quickly gives Bicky a paid job, and Bertie thanks Jeeves by shaving off the moustache Jeeves hates.
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Compare & connect the story universe
The Ransom of Red Chief
Another comic money-making scheme that backfires, ending with the side expected to pay having the upper hand.
The Importance of Being Earnest
Young men who live beyond their means, an aristocratic relative who controls the money, and a plot built on keeping up appearances.
The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
A satire of small-town American pride, where the town’s vanity about its own reputation becomes the joke.
The Catbird Seat
A quiet, underestimated figure defeats a powerful one by knowing exactly which threat will work.
Adaptation. Jeeves and Wooster (1992, Television episode).
Discussion & essay prompts for class, or your next paper
💬 Discussion questions
- What happens in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg
- Who is the hard-boiled egg in the Jeeves story
- Why does the Duke of Chiswick cut off Bicky’s allowance
- How does Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg explore the theme of money and miserliness?
- How does Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg explore the theme of appearance versus reality?
- What is the central conflict in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg, and how does it shape the ending?
✎ Essay prompts
- Analyze how P. G. Wodehouse develops the theme of money and miserliness in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg. Support your argument with specific evidence from the text.
- Examine the significance of the moustache in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg. What does it represent, and how does it deepen the work’s meaning?
- How does P. G. Wodehouse use comic narration by a cheerful outsider to shape the reader’s experience of Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg?
- Some readers assume that bicky is a duke or a lord himself. Argue for or against this interpretation, using evidence from the text.
Key questions students ask
- What happens in Jeeves and the Hard-Boiled Egg
- Who is the hard-boiled egg in the Jeeves story
- Why does the Duke of Chiswick cut off Bicky’s allowance
- What is Jeeves’s handshake scheme
- How does Bicky get money from his uncle in the end
- Why does Bertie shave off his moustache
Analysis is original StoryBites commentary. The story first appeared in The Saturday Evening Post on March 3, 1917. The text and the quotations are from P. G. Wodehouse’s My Man Jeeves (London: George Newnes, 1919), from the Project Gutenberg transcription (eBook #8164). StoryBites prints the full text for readers in the United States, where it is in the public domain. It remains under copyright in countries that protect works for 70 years after the author’s death, so readers there get the analysis and short quotations only.