The Code of the Woosters

Recovering quickly from his shock, Wooster realizes that the suitcase containing the police helmet belongs to Stiffy, who mistakenly thought Wooster’s room would be a safer hiding place than her own. Moments later, Stiffy confirms this when she enters and explains that she thought Wooster, as one of her father’s guests, would be exempt from a search. Seeing how grave a situation she has put Harold in, she pleads with Wooster to take the “rap.” Wooster reminds her that in this case, the “rap” means a stretch in prison. However, he eventually gives in, after Stiffy invokes “the Code of the Woosters,” which is “Never let a pal down” (224). Yodeling “ecstatically,” Stiffy compares him to Charles Dickens’s self-sacrificing Sidney Carton and runs off to tell Harold the good news.

Jeeves proposes that if Wooster simply dropped the helmet out the window, he might be able to retrieve it and hide it later at his leisure. This he does in the nick of time, just before Sir Watkyn and Constable Oates burst into the room. Watkyn says that he expects to find both his stolen cow creamer and Oates’s Helmet in Wooster’s possession; Wooster scoffs at the idea, saying he couldn’t possibly have stolen the creamer since he was with both Jeeves and

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