Reggie Mulliner is invited to Bingley On Sea by his brother, Dr. Joe Mulliner, to visit their old Nannie, Nurse Wilks who lives on in Reggie's memory as being 7 feet tall, with stevedore shoulders, beetling brows and steel teeth.

Noblesse Oblige requires Reggie to visit Nurse Wilks for afternoon tea with boiled eggs and fruit-cake. Upon arriving at 'Wee Holme' in Marazine Road, Nannie's address, he finds that she is also entertaining Jane Oliphant, Reggie's ex-fiancee, a girl with a heart of stone whom Reggie has reason to believe visited some people by the name of Ponderby and became engaged to a man named Dillingwater, all in the space of a week.

It is up to Nurse Wilks to bring the two star-crossed lovers together. Reggie is locked in a cupboard because he refuses to kiss Miss Jane, and Jane follows Reggie into the cupboard when she forgets where she is and lights up a cigarette.

There can be no person on earth more likely to strike terror into the human heart and mind than the En