Editing Decline and Fall (section)

==Plot summary==
Modest and unassuming theology student Paul Pennyfeather falls victim to the drunken antics of the [[Bullingdon Club#Cultural references|Bollinger Club]] and is subsequently expelled from [[University of Oxford|Oxford]] for running through the grounds of [[List of fictional Oxford colleges|Scone College]] without his trousers. Having thereby defaulted on the conditions of his inheritance, he is forced to take a job teaching at an obscure private school in [[Wales]] called Llanabba, run by Dr Fagan. Paul soon discovers that the other masters are all failures in life.

Attracted to the mother of one of his pupils, a wealthy widow called the Honourable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, he is delighted to be hired by her as tutor to her son during the vacation. Living in her country mansion, he becomes aware of her lovers and drug use but fails to realise that her business is running a chain of high-class brothels in Latin America. She however wants to marry him. First, he has to fly to [[Marseille]], where a consignment of her girls bound for [[Brazil]] has been held up by the police, who need bribing. Paul's activities there are shadowed by his college friend, Potts, who now works for the [[League of Nations]] investigating human trafficking.

Back in London, he is arrested on the morning of the wedding and, taking the fall to protect his fiancée's honour, is sentenced to seven years in prison for traffic in prostitution. In jail, he meets several former staff from Llanabba, which has been closed. Unable to wait seven years, Margot marries a government minister, who arranges for Paul to be rushed from prison to a private clinic for an urgent operation. The clinic is run by Dr Fagan, who certifies that Paul died under anaesthetic and puts him on a boat to Greece.

Deciding to resume his interrupted theological studies, Paul grows a heavy moustache and applies under his own name to Scone, saying he is a distant cousin of the dead criminal. The novel ends as it started, with Paul sitting in his room listening to the distant shouts of the Bollinger Club.<ref name="Evelyn Waugh Newsletter Volume 8 Number 3">[http://www.jwww.abbotshill.freeserve.co.uk/EWN8-3.htm Vile Bodies: A Revolution In Film Art]{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}, Evelyn Waugh Newsletter, Winter 1974</ref><ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/what-to-read/decline-and-fall-evelyn-waughs-orgy-of-bad-taste/|title=Decline and Fall: Evelyn Waugh's orgy of bad taste|last=Heffer|first=Simon|date=29 July 2016|work=The Daily Telegraph|access-date=3 September 2018|language=en-GB|issn=0307-1235}}</ref>