# Buffin — Short Fiction character guide

> Buffin in Short Fiction by P. G. Wodehouse.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Mr. Buffin

**First appearance:** 0000-when-papa-swore-in-hindustani

## Snapshot

A jittery small-time crook suspected of informing, who stakes his standing with the Frith Street gang on ambushing the policeman who once pinched him.

## Who they are

Mr. Buffin, nicknamed the Spider, is a nervous underworld hanger-on whose loyalty is under suspicion after Officer Keating arrests him, and whose attempts to prove himself to Sid Marks and the gang keep making things worse. His terror of being 'put through it' collides with a thirst for revenge that outweighs his nerve, since he weighs eight and a half stone against a fourteen-stone policeman. He matters because his bungled stakeout, freezing in the shadows with a stick and a grudge, sets the story's comic trap in motion.

## In the story

### [Misunderstood](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/chapters/misunderstood)

Mr. James 'Spider' Buffin, a pickpocket and revenge-seeker, is the central character. He obsesses over revenge against Constable Keating, befriends him to learn his schedule, but his plan is thwarted when others attack Keating first. He later denies seeing the attackers in court, earning praise but fleeing in fear.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/characters/buffin
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/short_fiction_42_se/characters