Mr Anstruther

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Mr Anstruther is a fictional character created by P. G. Wodehouse. Though he appears in a single short story – "The Love That Purifies" from Very Good, Jeeves – he remains one of the most famous of Wodehouse's minor characters. A friend of Dahlia Travers's late father, he is "a rather moth-eaten septuagenarian" and a temporary resident of Brinkley Court, the seat of Dahlia and her husband Tom, when Bertie Wooster, Dahlia's nephew, comes to visit.

Having learned that two young boys – Thomas Gregson, (Thos.), son of Bertie's Aunt Agatha, and Aunt Dahlia's own son Bonzo Travers – are also staying in the house, Anstruther organizes a Good Conduct contest, promising the winner a prize of five pounds. He keeps track of the boys' standing by awarding marks: twenty per day for perfect behaviour, subtracting marks for offenses according to their severity. The boys behave impeccably until the last day, when, in an attempt to douse Sebastian Moon for speaking ill of Greta Garbo, Thomas Gregson empties a bucket of water over Anstruther's head, making him, "without any previous training or upbringing, the wettest man in Worcestershire."