In the whole delightful world of Wodehouse, the English clergy offers some of the richest sources of good-natured good humour. Confronted by burglars or belted earls, they plough serenely on with the Advent sermon or the opening of the village fete – until that is, they are swept uncontrollably into fiendish plots which only a well-disposed devil or member of the Drones Club could have contrived.

No bishop is more endearingly plump and pompous than a P.G. Wodehouse bishop, no vicar more a pillar of his community (provided his sermons aren’t too long), and in this collection of short stories we watch as they are plunged into one hilarious scenario after another.