This partly autobiographical novel is of Wodehouse's early journalistic life as shared with Herbert Westbrook, who collaborated.

Characters

Margaret Goodwin — Engaged to Cloyster
James Orlebar Cloyster — Journalist
Ponto — Margaret's dog
Gunton-Cresswell — Margaret and Cloyster's friend
Mrs. Driver — Cloyster's first landlady
David Ossian Macrae — Cloyster's tutor at St. Gabriel's, Cambridge
Charles Fermin — Columnist on The Orb
Gresham — Writer on The Orb
Stanley Briggs — Musical comedy actor-manager
Julian Eversleigh — Advertising writer and Cloyster's friend
Vancott — Baker who is Eversleigh's landlord in Rupert St.
Malin — Sir George Grant's secretary in the Foreign Office
Kit Malim — Malim's wife
Tom Blake — Kit's brother who skippers a barge. Ghost of Cloyster's serious verse.
The Rev. John Hatten — Runs a boy's club in Lambeth, Ghost of Cloyster's fiction.
Sidney Price — Works for the Moon Assurance Company. Ghost of society stuff.
George Chandos — Pseudonym Cloyster wanted to use
Norah Perkins — Sid's girl friend
Ada Blake — Tom's wife
Nuppie and Albert — Blake's young helpers aboard the barges
Eve Eversleigh — Julian's cousin whom he marries
Fane — Columnist of the "People and Things" in The Orb
Richard Belsey — Briggs' valet