The eighty-nine-year-old author rose each day at 7:30 sharp and stepped out onto the back porch for the “daily dozen” series of calisthenic exercises, which he had performed every day since they were introduced in the United States in 1919. Then, his wife still asleep upstairs, Wodehouse fixed himself toast, coffee cake, and tea and, as he ate, read what he called a “breakfast book”—a mystery novel by someone like Ngaio Marsh or Rex Stout, or a light, humorous book. Afterward, he smoked a pipe, took a short walk with the dogs, and, by 9:00, settled down to work.
