Something Fishy

Something Fishy is a novel by P. G. Wodehouse, first published in the United Kingdom on 18 January 1957 by Herbert Jenkins, London and in the United States on 28 January 1957 by Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, under the title The Butler Did It. The plot concerns a tontine formed by a group of wealthy men weeks before the 1929 stock market crash, and a butler named Keggs who, having overheard the planning of the scheme, years later decides to try to make money out of his knowledge. The novel features Bill Hollister and Roscoe Bunyan, the sons of two of the men who set up the tontine. The last one to become married will receive one million dollars from the tontine. Keggs supports his impoverished former employer, the genial and often confused Lord Uffenham, and Uffenham's niece Jane. A chance meeting between Bill and Jane turns to romance, and Lord Uffenham and Keggs plot to save the day for Bill and Jane. Plot On September 10, 1929, American millionaire J. J. Bunyan hosts a dinner for other millionaires in New York. Acting on a suggestion from Mortimer Bayliss, the curator of Bunyan's art collection, the group decide to have fun with their money by making a sort of tontine: Bunyan and nine other millionaires contribute fifty thousand dollars each to a fund, and the last son of the men to get married will receive all the money plus the compound interest accumulated. The men are not allowed to tell their sons about the tontine.