P.G. Wodehouse wrote over seventy novels during his career as a comic writer. In the middle of all that novelizing, he also found the time to compose a short story or two. Enough stories to fill the pages of a good twenty collections, in fact.
II.
"The Truth About George" is the first story from the collection Meet Mr. Mulliner (1927). <1> And we do, meet Mr. Mulliner, a middle-aged man with an "extraordinarily childlike candour [to] his eyes". This honesty of gaze serves Mr. Mulliner well in what seems to be his chosen pastime - recounting vaguely improbable stories in the pub Angler's Rest, gently aided by a series of drinks.
The story that Mr. Mulliner has in mind here is to do with his nephew, George Mulliner. George had the misfortune to be born with a stammering condition. This condition didn't pose a problem in George making a living, as his father left him enough of an inheritance so that George needn't pursue gainful employment. George lived comfortably in the English countryside therefore, and developed a passion for crossword puzzles. It's when George found he had also developed a passion for the vicar's daughter (and fellow crossword-solver) Susan Blake, that his stammering became an obstacle he had to resolve.
III.
To London George travels, to see a specialist in speech-problems. The specialist advises George that shyness was the root of George's stammering, and to rid himself of the condition, he had to make a regular effort to engage strangers in conversation, no matter how shy he felt at the prospect. George puts the specialist's advice to practice on the train back from London, and ends up trying to trade small talk with...another stammerer.
On goes the train. George's next attempt at conversation results in him meeting the Emperor of Abyssinia. The "Emperor" turns out to be an escapee from an area psychiatric asylum. In any case, George is no further ahead in applying the specialist's cure.
It's only when George returns to his village, and speaks to Miss Blake in their crossword synonyms that things change for the better: "'I am suffering from extreme fatigue, weariness, lassitude, exhaustion, prostration, and langour' [George said]. 'I'm so sorry' [Miss Blake] murmurred. 'So very sorry, grieved, distressed, afflicted, pained, mortified, dejected, and upset'". This "sweet sympathy" of Miss Blake's is just the thing to cure George's stammer, and right then he delivers an ardent, unstammered marriage proposal to the young lady.
IV.
Miss Blake's reply to George's proposal rounds out Mr. Mulliner's tale about his nephew, as well as Wodehouse's amusing and fine story. "Yes, yea, ay, aye! Decidedly, unquestionably, indubitably, incontrovertibly, and past all dispute!"
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<1>Wodehouse, P.G. Meet Mr. Mulliner. 2008 Edition: Arrow Books, London.
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