He was expelled from Eton for "breaking out at night and roaming the streets of Windsor in a false moustache", and was sent down from Oxford, where he had been good friends with "Beefy" Bingham, for "pouring ink from a second-storey window on the junior dean of his college".
During this time he gathered a wide circle of shady and dubious friends, mostly involved in the turf, including the unpleasant Mr. R Jones, and an equally broad set of gambling debts.
A fan of a pretty face, at some point in his London days he fell for a girl on the stage, Joan Valentine, and bombarded her with letters and poetry to little avail, a fact that threatens to cause some embarrassment when he becomes engaged to American heiress Aline Peters.
He moves to America to work for his father-in-law, becoming a successful part of the Dog-Joy empire, only returning occasionally to attend weddings or to push his products in the English market.
A world's worker himself, Freddie eyed with scorn one who, like Lord Emsworth, neither toiled nor spun... And if there is one thing that pierces the armour of an English father of the upper classes it is to be looked down on by his younger son."