A "lost" Peter Pan reference in Wodehouse

Chapter 8 of The White Feather (first published in The Captain, November 1905) opens thus:

What a go is life!
Let us examine the case of Jackson, of Dexter's. O'Hara, who had left Dexter's at the end of the summer term, had once complained to Clowes of the manner in which his house-master treated him, and Clowes had remarked in his melancholy way that it was nothing less than a breach of the law that Dexter should persist in leading a fellow a dog's life without a dog licence for him.
That was precisely how Jackson felt on the subject.

The first exclamation comes in fact from Barrie's play Peter Pan; or, the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, premiered at the Duke of York's Theatre (London) on 27 December, 1904. It does not appear however in the published version of the script (1928), or in the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy: it is only found in the original 1903-4 script (currently at the Lilly Library, University of Indiana) and/or copies of the 1904 prompt script. It can be read in A. H. Alton's annotated edition (Peter Pan, Broadview 2011), where she notes that a page that was later crossed out contains some dialogue in which the pirate Starkey "reveals his poetic soul". It includes the following exchange (p. 257):

STARKEY. There I lie—oh what a lesson—struck down by some careless shaft—like a gentlemanly eagle in mid air. And for what end? My russet homespun Smee. I grope vainly seeking for the meaning of this thing but ever it evades my grasp. Oh, mystery of mysteries, Smee, what a go is life.
SMEE. But always interesting.
STARKEY. Profoundly interesting even when most a puzzle.

That some form of this dialogue was actually used in the London performances is shown by the above quotation, and confirmed by a mention in The Outlook, April 8, 1905, p. 476: "With the buccaneer in Peter Pan he says 'What a go is life!'". However, since most incarnations of the play known today omit the phrase, the reference in TWF is extremely hard to pick up.

One adaptation of the play that does include it is J. Caird and T. Nunn, Peter Pan or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. A Fantasy in Five Acts (Dramatists Play Service 1993). The authors say: "We have used the 1928 play script as a basis for the present edition, but have also drawn from Barrie's 'Notes for a Fairy Play,' 1903; the original script of PETER PAN entitled ANON — A PLAY, 1903; the prompt script of the first production in 1904; the American version of 1905; the novel of 1911; and the film scenario which he wrote for Paramount in 1920" (pp. 7-8). In Act Five, Scene 1 (pp. 105-6) this version reads:

(Enter Smee, who watches the redskins as they disappear from view, and Starkey, who is following them, laden with papooses.)
SMEE. You, Starkey.
STARKEY. It's me, Smee.
SMEE. I thought you were drowned.
STARKEY. No, Smee, I was captured by the redskins. The squaws make me carry all their babies.
SMEE. It's a come-down for a pirate.
STARKEY. I shall become vulgar.
SMEE. Never. Oh, surely, never.
STARKEY. What a go is life.
SMEE. But always interesting.

References to Peter Pan are few and far between in the Wodehouse canon. The only other ones I am aware of are:

• Not George Washington, Part Two ch. 23: "She [Eva] had decided to go to the ball as Peter Pan."
• Mike, ch. 31: "There was something pleasant and homely about Mr. Outwood. In appearance he reminded Mike of Smee in 'Peter Pan.' He had the same eyebrows and pince-nez and the same motherly look."
• The Little Warrior, ch. XII § 1: "It was like being in Peter Pan's house in the tree-tops." [Also in the title of ch. XXVII "In Peter Pan's House" in Grand Magazine (under the British title Jill the Reckless), but it is not clear whether the chapter divisions and titles in that serialization are Wodehouse's own choice or the editor's.]