I will say this for the kid, though: he was a trier. Failure didn’t damp him. Whenever there was any kind of sweet in sight he had a dash at his line, and kept saying something till he had got what he was after. His chief fault was his uncertainty. Personally, I would have been prepared to risk opening in the act and was ready to start the public performance at the first opportunity, but Jeeves said no.

“I would not advocate undue haste, sir,” he said. “As long as the young gentleman’s memory refuses to act with any certainty, we are running grave risks of failure. Today, if you recollect, sir, he said ‘Kick Freddie!’ That is not a speech to win a young lady’s heart, sir.”

“No. And she might do it, too. You’re right. We must postpone production.”

But, by Jove, we didn’t! The curtain went up the very next afternoon.