Project Gutenberg's The Girl on the Boat, by Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Girl on the Boat

Author: Pelham Grenville Wodehouse

Release Date: March 1, 2007 [EBook #20717]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GIRL ON THE BOAT ***

Produced by Martin Pettit and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

THE GIRL ON THE BOAT

BY

P. G. WODEHOUSE

HERBERT JENKINS LIMITED
3 YORK STREET LONDON S.W.1

[Illustration: A HERBERT JENKINS BOOK]

_Tenth printing, completing 95,781 copies_

Printed in Great Britain by Butler & Tanner Ltd., Frome and London

WHAT THIS STORY IS ABOUT

It was Sam Marlowe's fate to fall in love with a girl on the R.M.S.
"Atlantic" (New York to Southampton) who had ideals. She was looking for
a man just like Sir Galahad, and refused to be put off with any inferior
substitute. A lucky accident on the first day of the voyage placed Sam
for the moment in the Galahad class, but he could not stay the pace.

He follows Billie Bennett "around," scheming, blundering and hoping, so
does the parrot faced young man Bream Mortimer, Sam's rival.

There is a somewhat hectic series of events at Windles, a country house
in Hampshire, where Billie's ideals still block the way and Sam comes on
in spite of everything.

Then comes the moment when Billie.... It is a Wodehouse novel in every
sense of the term.

ONE MOMENT!

Before my friend Mr. Jenkins--wait a minute, Herbert--before my friend
Mr. Jenkins formally throws this book open to the public, I should like
to say a few words. You, sir, and you, and you at the back, if you will
kindly restrain your impatience.... There is no need to jostle. There
will be copies for all. Thank you. I shall not detain you long.

I wish to clear myself of a possible charge of plagiarism. You smile.
Ah! but you don't know. You don't realise how careful even a splendid
fellow like myself has to be. You wouldn't have me go down to posterity
as Pelham the Pincher, would you? No! Very well, then. By the time this
volume is in the hands of the customers, everybody will, of course, have
re