There is only one perfect gentleman’s gentleman in the world — at least for the Drones Clubloving, Aunt Agatha-fearing Indian. That is Jeeves, of course, whose avuncular habit of quoting from the classical greats might remind the reader in this part of the world of uncles and granduncles who firmly believed in the value of scripted wisdom. Not that Jeeves ever enters into the unending problems of his master, Bertie Wooster, or those of his friends suffering from similar forms of intellectual debility without invitation, but he is, in his inimitable way, always fluidly available, unassumingly there with the right pick-meup when catastrophe is about to strike. And, whenever asked, with a solution too, or glimmerings of it, based on ‘psychology’ and a carefully built edifice of smart moves, sometimes including the illegal removal of objects or pretend-courtships. The high dignity and learnedness of Jeeves, which bend to understairs gossip only when crucial information is required to help his master or his friends, are an unwritten bar against him being called a valet. He recalls the personal domestic assistant of the landed gentlemen that India is familiar with — discreet and all-knowing at the same time, with the silent tread that matches his genie-like role.

This is only partly related to the quality that the Indian high commissioner to the United Kingdom, Vikram Doraiswami, described recently to suggest that Jeeves is a disguised Indian. Jeeves never has to open doors, according to his perpetually awestruck, occasionally weakly rebellious master. He is one place, like those birds in Bombay who bung their astral bodies about, and reassembles elsewhere like the birds which appear next in Calcutta. The high commissioner might have gone further. Jeeves with his semi-mythical attributes may be an import from the land of snake charmers and elephants but even closer to the Indian bone are Bertie Wooster’s demanding aunts and Lord Emsworth’s galaxy of sisters. What would the grounds of Blandings Castle be without Lady Constance Keeble’s ringing calls to her truant brother? Perhaps Lord Emsworth’s wordless devotion to his prize-winning pig, the Empress of Blandings, has a touch of the Indian about it too? Indian stories about domestic animals show how love between the owner and his creature triumphs over the animal’s economic usefulness just as the Empress’s prize-winning capacity cannot explain Lord Emsworth’s endless mooning over her worndown fence. Of course, the Indian idea — later withdrawn — of hug-acow on Valentine’s Day goes far beyond even Wodehouse’s comic imagination.

The untouched world of Bertie Wooster and Lord Emsworth, of Uncle Freddie and Galahad Threepwood — both of generously risky morals — does offer space for a bit of disguised Eastern cunning. That must be provided by the perfect gentleman’s gentleman, silent, wise, loyal and with lightning-quick solutions to problems of love and escape from love. So Jeeves is Indian in spirit, perhaps, while remaining a solemn instigator of Wodehouse’s best comedy.