he ultimately solves. It is possible that Jeeves schemes from the start to return to Bertie's employ and get rid of Bertie's banjolele, and enters Chuffy's employment knowing that Chuffy would be near Bertie. Interpreting events through hints provided by Bertie's narration presents what Thompson calls "a perpetual and delightful challenge to the reader". For example, Thompson suggests there is a hint that Jeeves may have deliberately led Bertie into trouble by arranging that Stoker rather than Chuffy saw Bertie kiss Pauline. When Bertie learns that Chuffy is jealous because Bertie was once engaged to Pauline, Bertie comments, "I began to perceive that in arranging that Stoker and not he should be the witness of the recent embrace the guardian angel of the Woosters had acted dashed shrewdly" (chapter 6). According to Thompson, "We know the identity of the somewhat diabolical guardian angel of this particular Wooster". Background The book uses the dated and now derogatory term "nigger minstrels" which was once a common term for white performers in blackface. Blackface minstrels were a staple of British seaside resorts until World War II. The term "nigger minstrels" was historically used to differentiate blackface minstrels from "colored minstrels" who were actually black performers. Blackface performances, widely considered offensive today, were popular at the time Wodehouse was writing this novel. During this period, Al Jolson, Bing Crosby and Shirley Temple were among the many actors who performed in blackface. While planning Thank You, Jeeves, Wodehouse wrote a letter to his friend William Townend about ideas for the novel. In the letter, dated 1 April 1932, Wodehouse wrote that he was writing "a Jeeves novel where Bertie, who is blacked up like a nigger minstrel, is scouring the countryside for butter to remove his blacking". According to the letter, Wodehouse was considering ideas that do not appear in the final novel, including an idea of Bertie breaking into an animal breeder's house for butter and being confronted by a number of animals, and another idea in which Bertie ends up at a girls' school, gets chased by a Games Mistress (a woman who teaches sports), and subsequently hides in a dormitory, where the kids welcome him enthusiastically because they think he is a blackface minstrel. Publication history The story was illustrated by Gilbert Wilkinson in the Strand and by James Montgomery Flagg in Cosmopolitan. The novel was finished by the end of May