 | Up to |  | Home |  | Humour |  | Quotes |  | Fiction Quotes |
 | Site Map | | |  | Text version |
|
|
From The World of Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
[...]
Bingo studied the menu devoutly.
"I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?"
I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick.
"Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down? said Bingo.
You know the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This bird before me, who spoke in this absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridges exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frit au gourmet aux champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly!
A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them [...]
[...]
"Bertie," he said, "I want your advice."
"Carry on."
"At least, not your advice, because that wouldn't be much good to anybody. I mean, you're a pretty consummate old ass, aren't you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course."
"No, no, I see that."
"What I wish you to do is put the whole thing to that fellow Jeeves of yours, and see what he suggests. [...]"
[From Jeeves in the Springtime]
[...]
In Society circles, I believe, my Aunt Agatha has a fairly fruity reputation as a hostess. But then, I take it she doesn't ballyrag her other guests the way she does me. I don't think I can remember a single meal with her since I was a kid of tender years at which she didn't turn the conversation sooner or later to the subject of my frightfulness. Today, she started in on me with the fish.
"Bertie," she said - in part and chattily - "it is young men like you who make the person with the future of the race at heart despair!"
"What-ho!" I said.
"Cursed with too much money, you fritter away in selfish idleness a life which might have been made useful, helpful, and profitable. You do nothing but waste your time on frivolous pleasures. You are simply an anti-social animal, a drone --" She fixed me with a glittering eye. "Bertie, you must marry!"
[From Scoring Off Jeeves]
[...]
I flung open the door. I got a momentary flash of about a hundred and fifteen cats of all sizes and colours scrapping in the middle of the room, and then they all shot past me with a rush and out of the front door; and all that was left of the mobscene was the head of a whacking big fish, lying on the carpet and staring up at me in a rather austere sort of way, as if it wanted a written explanation and apology.
[From Sir Roderick Comes To Lunch]
We shook hands, and the brother went off to get a wash.
"Sidney's such a dear," said the girl. "I know you'll like him."
"Seems a topper."
"I do hope he will enjoy his stay here. It's so seldom he gets a holiday. His vicar overworks him dreadfully."
"Vicars are the devil, what?"
"I wonder if you will be able to spare any time to show him round the place? I can see he's taken such a fancy to you. But, of course, it would be a bother, I suppose, so --"
"Rather not. Only too delighted." For half a second I thought of patting her hand, then I felt I'd better wait a bit. "I'll do anything, absolutely anything."
"It's awfully kind of you."
"For you," I said, "I would --"
At this point the brother returned, and the conversation became what you might call general.
[From Aunt Agatha Takes The Count]
[From The Artistic Career of Corky]
"I beg your pardon, sir?" said Jeeves, coldly.
"Those jolly purple ones."
"Very good, sir."
He lugged them out of the drawer as if he were a vegetarian fishing a caterpillar out of his salad. You could see he was feeling deeply. Deuced painful and all that, this sort of thing, but a fellow has got to assert himself every now and then.
[...]
"I got your message," I said.
"Oh, are you Bertie Wooster?"
"Absolutely. And this is my pal George Caffyn. Writes plays and what not, don't you know."
We all shook hands, and the policeman, having retrieved a piece of chewing gum from the under-side of a chair, where he had parked it against a rainy day, went off into a corner and began to contemplate the infinite.
"This is a rotten country," said Cyril.
"Oh, I don't know, you know, don't you know?" I said.
"We do our best," said George.
"Old George is an American," I explained. "Write plays, don't you know, and what not."
[...]
"She'll cut you out of her will?"
"It isn't a question of money. But -- of course, you've never met my Aunt Agatha, so it's rather hard to explain. But she's a sort of human vampire-bat, and she'll make things most fearfully unpleasant for me when I go back to England. [...]"
[...]
"You'd better consult Jeeves," I said.
"A hot and by not means unripe idea! Where is he?"
"Gone back to the kitchen, I suppose."
"I'll smite the good old bell, shall I? Yes? No?"
"Right-o."
Jeeves poured silently in.
"Oh I say, Jeeves," began Cyril, "I just wanted to have a syllable or two with you. It's this way -- [...]"
[From Jeeves and the Chump Cyril]
[...]
Lady Malvern was a hearty, happy, healthy, overpowering sort of dashed female, not so very tall but making up for it by measuring about six feet from the O.P. to the Prompt Side. She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built around her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season. She had bright, bulging eyes and a lot of yellow hair, and when she spoke she showed about fifty-seven front teeth. She was one of those women who kind of numb a fellow's faculties. She made me feel as if I were ten years old and had been brought into the drawing-room in my Sunday clothes to say how-d'you-do. Altogether by no means the sort of thing a chappie would wish to find in his sitting-room before breakfast.
Motty, the son, was about twenty-three, tall and thin and meek-looking. He had the same yellow hair as his mother, but he wore it plastered down and parted in the middle. His eyes bulged, too, but they weren't bright. They were a dull grey with pink rims. His chin gave up the struggle about half-way down, and he didn't appear to have any eyelashes. A mild, furtive, sheepish blighter, in short.
[...]
"What ho!" I said.
"What ho!" said Motty.
"What ho! What ho!"
"What ho! What ho! What ho!"
After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.
[...]
"There was something sort of bleak about her tone, rather as if she had swallowed an east wind. This I took to be due to the fact that she probably hadn't breakfasted. It's only after a bit of breakfast that I'm able to regard the world with that sunny cheeriness which makes a fellow the universal favourite. I'm never much of a lad till I've engulfed an egg or two and a beaker of coffee.
"I suppose you haven't breakfasted?"
"I have not yet breakfasted."
"Won't you have an egg or something? Or a sausage or something? Or something?"
"No, thank you."
She spoke as if she belonged to an anti-sausage league or a league for the suppression of eggs. There was a bit of silence.
[From Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest]
"It's brain," I said; "pure brain! What do you do to get like that, Jeeves? I believe you must eat a lot of fish, or something. Do you eat a lot of fish, Jeeves?"
"No, sir."
"Oh, well, then, it's just a gift, I take it; and if you aren't born that way there's no use worrying."
[From The Aunt and the Sluggard]
[From The Great Sermon Handicap]
"Bertie!" he said, in an ernest kind of voice.
I decided to take a firm line from the start. Young Bingo [...] had developed a habit of dropping in on me at all hours and decanting his anguished soul on me. I could stand this all right after dinner, and even after lunch; but before breakfast, no. We Woosters are amiability itself, but there is a limit.
[From The Purity of the Turf]
[From The Metropolitan Touch]
[From The Delayed Exit of Claude and Eustace]
I stared at him. That flower in his buttonhole. That dazed look. Yes, he had all the symptoms; and yet the thing seemed incredible.
[From Bingo and the Little Woman]
[...]
"Jeeves, you remember Miss Glossop?"
"Very vividly, sir."
"She's engaged to Mr. Biffen!"
"Indeed, sir?" said Jeeves. And, with not another word, he slid out. The blighter's calm amazed and shocked me. It seemed to indicate that there must be a horrible streak of callousness in him. I mean to say, it wasn't as if he didn't know Honoria Glossop.
I read the paragraph again. A peculiar feeling it gave me. I don't know if you have ever experienced the sensation of seeing the announcement of the engagement of a pal of yours to a girl whom you were only saved from marrying yourself by the skin of your teeth. It induces a sort of -- well, it's difficult to describe it exactly; but I should imagine a fellow would feel much the same if he happened to be strolling through the jungle with a boyhood chum and met a tigress or a jaguar, or what not, and managed to shin up a tree and looked down and saw the friend of his youth vanishing into the undergrowth in the animal's slavering jaws. A sort of profound, prayerful relief, if you know what I mean, blended at the same time with a pang of pity. What I'm driving at is that, thankful as I was that I hadn't had to marry Honoria myself, I was sorry to see a real good chap like old Biffy copping it. I sucked down a spot of tea and began brooding over the business.
[...]
"If you will pardon my saying so, sir, Mr. Biffen has surely only himself to thank if he has entered upon matrimonial obligations which do not please him."
"You're talking absolute rot, Jeeves. You know as well as I do that Honoria Glossop is an Act of God. You might as well blame a fellow for getting run over by a truck."
[From The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy]
"Who are these hounds from hell?" I asked.
"Some people named Pringle. I haven't seen them since I was ten, but I remember them at that time striking me as England's premier warts."
[...]
"Nevertheless, Jeeves, it is a scientific fact that there is a particular style of female that does seem strangely attracted to the sort of fellow I am."
"Very true, sir."
"I mean to say, I know perfectly well that I've got, roughly speaking, half the amount of brain a normal bloke ought to possess. And when a girl comes along who has about twice the regular allowance, she too often makes a bee line for me with the love light in her eyes. I don't know how to account for it, but it is so."
"It may be Nature's provision for maintaining the balance of the species, sir."
[...]
"Sir Roderick Glossop," announced the maid or some such person, and in he came.
One of the things that gets this old crumb so generally disliked among the better element of the community is the fact that he has a head like the dome of St. Paul's and eyebrows that want bobbing or shingling to reduce them to anything like reasonable size. It is a nasty experience to see this bald and bushy bloke advancing on you when you haven't prepared the strategic railways in your rear.
[From Without the Option]
[...]
I doubt that the idea which came to me at this juncture would have occurred to a single one of any dozen of the largest-brained blokes in history. Napoleon might have got it, but I'll bet Darwin and Shakespeare and Marcus Aurelius wouldn't have thought of it in a thousand years.
[From Fixing it for Freddie]
[...]
"What! Is that - that buzzard trying to pinch our cook?"
"Yes, sir."
"After eating our bread and salt, dammit?"
"I fear, sir," said Jeeves, "that when it comes to a matter of cooks, ladies have but a rudimentary sense of morality."
[...]
It's a rummy thing, but when you come down to it Jeeves is always right. He had tried to cheer me up at the station by saying that I would not find Harrowgate unpleasant, and, by Jove, he was perfectly correct. What I had overlooked, when examining the project, was the fact that I should be in the middle of a bevy of blokes who were taking the cure and I shouldn't be taking it myself. You've no notion what a dashed cosy, satisfying feeling that gives a fellow.
I mean to say, there was old Uncle George, for instance. The medicine-man, having given him the once-over, had ordered him to abstain from all alcoholic liquids, and in addition to tool down the hill to the Royal Pump-Room each morning at eight-thirty and imbibe twelve ounces of warm crescent saline and magnesia. It doesn't sound much, put that way, but I gather from contemporary accounts that it's practically equivalent to getting outside a couple of little old last year's eggs beaten up in sea water. And the thought of Uncle George, who had oppressed me sorely in my childhood, sucking down that stuff and having to hop out of bed at eight-fifteen to do so was extremely grateful and comforting of a morning.
[From Clustering round Young Bingo]
[...]
Young Bingo, you see, is one of those fellows who, once their fingers close over the handle of a tennis racket, fall into a sort of trance in which nothing outside the radius of the lawn exists for them. If you came up to Bingo in the middle of a set and told him that panthers were devouring his best friend in the kitchen garden, he would look at you and say: "Oh, ah?" or words to that effect. [...] as I dressed for dinner that night, I was conscious of ann impending doom.
"Jeeves," I said, "have you ever pondered on Life?"
"From time to time, sir, in my leisure moments."
"Grim, isn't it, what?"
"Grim, sir?"
"I mean to say, the difference between things as they look and things as they are."
[...]
"[...] The tie, if I might suggest, sir, a shade more tightly knotted. One aims at the perfect butterfly effect. If you will permit me --"
"What do ties matter, Jeeves, at a time like this? Do you realise that Mr. Little's domestic happiness is hanging in the scale?"
"There is no time, sir, when ties do not matter."
I could see the man was pained, but I did not try to heal the wound. What's the word I want? Preoccupied. I was too preoccupied, don't you know. And distrait. Not to say careworn.
[...]
Every young man starting life should know how to cope with an angry swan, so I will briefly relate the proper procedure. You begin by picking up the raincoat which somebody has dropped; and then, judging the distance to a nicety, you simply shove the raincoat over the bird's head; and, taking the boat-hook which you have prudently brought with you, you insert it under the swan and heave. [...] That was Jeeves's method, and I cannot see how it could be improved upon.
[...]
"I mean to say, Aunt Agatha sent word by Purvis just now that she wanted to see me. Probably she's polishing up her hatchet at this very moment."
"It might be the most judicious plan not to meet her, sir."
"But how can I help it?"
"There is a good, stout waterpipe running down the wall immediately outside this window, sir. And I could have the two-seater waiting outside the park gates in twenty minutes."
I eyed him with reverence.
"Jeeves," I said, "you are always right. You couldn't make it five, could you?"
"Let us say ten, sir."
"Ten it is. Lay out some raiment suitable for travel, and leave the rest to me. Where is this waterpipe of which you speak so highly?"
[From Jeeves and the Impending Doom]
[...]
"The matter of Mr. Sipperly, sir?"
"Precisely. Don't worry yourself any further. Stop the brain working. I shall not require your services. I have found the solution. It came on me like a flash."
"Indeed, sir?"
"Just like a flash. In a matter of this kind, Jeeves, the first thing to do is to study -- what's the word I want?"
"I could not say, sir."
"Quite a common word -- though long."
"Psychology, sir?"
"The exact noun. It is a noun?"
"Yes, sir."
"Spoken like a man! Well, Jeeves, direct your attention to the psychology of old Sippy. Mr. Sipperly, if you follow me, is in the position of a man from whose eyes the scales have not fallen. The task that faced me, Jeeves, was to discover some scheme which would cause those scales to fall. You get me?"
"Not entirely, sir."
[...]
It was over the door marked 'Inquiries' that I proposed to suspend the flour.
Now, setting a boody-trap for a respectable citizen like a head master (even of an inferior school to your own) is not a matter to be approached lightly and without careful preparation. I don't suppose I've ever selected a lunch with more thought than I did that day. And after a nicely balanced meal, preceded by a couple of dry Martinis, washed down with half a bot. of a nice, dry champagne, and followed by a spot of brandy, I could have set a booby-trap for a bishop.
[...]
"Mr. Sipperly had had a nasty accident, sir."
"He had?"
"Yes, sir."
"Rummy coincidence. I mean, after what you were saying this morning."
"Not altogether, sir. Before telephoning to Miss Moon, I took the further liberty of striking Mr. Sipperly a sharp blow on the head with one of your golf clubs, which was fortunately lying in a corner of the room. The putter, I believe, sir. If you recollect, you were practising with it this morning before you left."
[...] "Good heavens, Jeeves!"
"I did it with the utmost regret, sir. It appeared to me to the only course."
"But look here, Jeeves. I don't get this. Wasn't Mr. Sipperly pretty shirty when he came to and found you'd been soaking him with putters?"
"He was not aware that I had done so, sir. I took the precaution of waiting until his back was momentarily turned."
[From The Inferiority Complex of Old Sippy]
[From Jeeves and the Yule-Tide Spirit]
"True, Jeeves. What have we here?" I asked, inspecting the tray.
"Kippered herrings, sir."
"And I shouldn't wonder," I said, for I was in thoughtful mood, "if even herrings haven't troubles of their own."
"Quite possibly, sir."
"I mean, apart from getting kippered."
"Yes, sir."
"And so it goes on, Jeeves, so it goes on."
[...]
She seemed somewhat perturbed, and snapped into the agenda without delay. Aunt Dahlia is one of those big, hearty women. She used to go in a lot for hunting, and she generally speaks as if she had just sighted a fox on a hillside half a mile away.
"Bertie," she cried, in the manner of one encouraging a bevy of hounds to renewed efforts. "I want your help."
[From Jeeves and the Song of Songs]
"I cannot recall his exact words, sir, but he drew a comparison between your mentality and that of a cuckoo."
"A cuckoo, eh?"
"Yes, sir. To the bird's advantage."
[...]
I stared at the man.
"How many tins of sardines did you eat, Jeeves?"
"None, sir. I am not fond of sardines."
"You mean, you thought of this great, this ripe, this amazing scheme entirely without the impetus given to the brain by fish?"
"Yes, sir."
"You stand alone, Jeeves."
"Thank you, sir."
[From Episode of the Dog McIntosh]
[...]
"I found him up a tree."
"If Mr. Wooster was up a tree, I have no doubt he was actuated by excellent motives and had only Miss Mapleton's best interests at heart."
[...]
The breath-taking exhibit before me was in person a bit on the short side. I mean to say, she didn't tower above one, or anything like that. But, to compensate for this lack of inches, she possessed to a remarkable degree that sort of quiet air of being unwilling to stand any rannygazoo which females who run schools always have. I had noticed the same thing when in statu pupillari, in my old head master, one glance from whose eye had invariably been sufficient to make me confess all. Sergeant-majors are like that, too. Also traffic-cops and some post office girls. It's something in the way they purse up their lips and look through you.
[...]
There was a pause. Miss Mapleton eyed the constable for an instant as if she had caught him sucking acid-drops during the Scripture lesson.
"Do you mean to tell me, officer," she said, in a voice that hit him just under the third button of the tunic and went straight through to the spinal column, "that you have had the imbecility to bungle this whole affair by mistaking Mr. Wooster for a burglar?"
[...]
I hesitated.
"Jeeves."
"Sir?"
"Those plus-fours."
"Yes, sir?"
"You may give them to the poor."
"Thank you very much, sir."
I sighed.
"It is my heart's blood, Jeeves."
"I appreciate the sacrifice, sir. But, once the first pang of separation is over, you will feel much easier without them."
"You think so?"
"I am convinced of it, sir."
"So be it, then, Jeeves," I said, "so be it."
[From Jeeves and the Kid Clementina]
"Yes, sir."
"His goggle eyes? His golden curls?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't know why it is, but I've never been able to bear with fortitude anything in the shape of a kid with golden curls. Confronted with one, I feel the urge to step on him or drop things on him from a height."
"Many strong natures are affected in the same way, sir."
[...]
I had just got across the lawn when a head poked itself out of the smoking-room window and beamed at me in an amiable sort of way.
"Ah, Mr. Wooster," it said. "Ha, ha!"
"Ho, ho!" I replied, not to be outdone in the courtesies.
[...]
"But, Aunt Dahlia! Do you realise what you've taken on? Have you an inkling of the sort of scourge you've introduced into your home? In the society of young Thos., strong men quail. He is England's premier fiend in human shape. There is no devilry beyond his scope."
[From The Love that Purifies]
"Extremely, sir."
"Well, it's like this. Take a couple of birds. These birds get married, and for a while all is gas and gaiters. The female regards her mate as about the best thing that ever came a girl's way. He is he king, if you know what I mean. She looks up to him and respects him. Joy, as you might say, reigns supreme. Eh?"
"Very true, sir."
"Then gradually, by degrees - little by little, if I may use the expression - disillusionment sets in. She seems him eating a poached egg, and the glamour starts to fade. She watches him mangling a chop, and it continues to fade. And so on and so on, if you follow me, and so forth."
"I follow you perfectly, sir."
[...]
It's rummy how people differ in this matter of selecting the beverage that is to touch the spot. It's what Jeeves would call the psychology of the individual. Some fellows in my position might have voted for a tankard of ale, and the Pyke's idea of a refreshing snort was, as I knew from what she had told me on the journey out, a cupful of tepid pip-and-peel water or, failing that, what she called the fruit-liquor. You make this, apparently, by soaking raisins in cold water and adding the juice of a lemon. After which, I suppose, you invite a couple of old friends in and have an orgy, burying the bodies in the morning.
[...]
To this, Mrs. Bingo's reply was long and eloquent and touched on the fact that in her last term at St. Adela's a girl named Simpson had told her (Mrs. Bingo) that a girl named Waddesley had told her (the Simpson) that the Pyke, while pretending to be a friend of hers (Mrs. Bingo's), had told her (the Waddesley) that she (the Bingo) couldn't eat strawberries and cream without coming out in spots, and, in addition, had spoken in the most catty manner about the shape of her nose. It could all have been condensed, however, into the words "Right ho".
[From Jeeves and the Old School Chum]
[...]
"Marriage is an honourable state."
"Oh, absolutely."
"It might make you a better man, Bertie."
"Who says so?"
"I say so. Marriage might turn you from a frivolous young scallywag into - er - a non-scallywag. [...]"
[From Indian Summer of an Uncle]
"Indeed, sir?"
"I will read it to you. Handed in at Upper Bleaching. Message runs as follows: 'When you come tomorrow, bring my football boots. Also, if humanly possible, Irish water-spaniel. Urgent. Regards. Tuppy.' What do you make of that, Jeeves?"
"As I interpret the document, sir, Mr. Glossop wishes you, when you come tomorrow, to bring his football boots. Also, if humanly possible, an Irish water-spaniel. He hints that the matter is urgent, and sends his regards."
"Yes, that's how I read it, too. But why football boots?"
"Perhaps Mr. Glossop wishes to play football, sir."
I considered this.
"Yes," I said. "That may be the solution. But why would a man, staying peacefully at a country-house, suddenly develop a craving to play football?"
"I could not say, sir."
"And why an Irish water-spaniel?"
"There again I fear I can hazard no conjecture, sir."
"What is an Irish water-spaniel?"
"A water-spaniel of a variety bred in Ireland, sir."
"You think so?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, perhaps you're right. But why should I sweat about the place collecting dogs - of whatever nationality - for young Tuppy? Does he think I'm Santa Claus? Is he under the impression that my feelings toward him, after that Drones Club incident, are those of kindly benevolence? Irish water-spaniels, indeed! Tchah!"
"Sir?"
"Tchah, Jeeves."
"Very good, sir."
The front door bell buzzed again.
"Our busy morning, Jeeves."
"Yes, sir."
"All right. I'll go."
This time it was Aunt Dahlia. She charged in with the air of a woman with something on her mind -- giving tongue, in fact, while actually on the very doormat.
"Bertie," she boomed, in that ringing voice of hers which cracks window-panes and upsets vases, "I've come about that young hound Glossop."
"It's quite all right, Aunt Dahlia," I replied soothingly. "I have the situation well in hand. The Giant Squirt and the Luminous Rabbit are even now being packed."
"I don't know what you're talking about, and I don't for a moment suppose you do, either," said the relative somewhat brusquely, "but, if you'll kindly stop gibbering, I'll tell you what I mean. I had a most disturbing letter from Katherine. About this reptile. [...]"
[...]
"Bertie," said Aunt Dahlia, with a sort of frozen calm. "You are the Abysmal Chump. Listen to me. It's simply because I am fond of you and have influence with the Lunacy Commissioners that you weren't put in a padded cell years ago. Bungle this business, and I withdraw my protection. [...]"
[...]
What with one thing and another - having been at a school where they didn't play it and so forth - Rugby football is a game I can't claim absolutely to understand in all its niceties, if you know what I mean. I can follow the broad, general principles, of course. I mean to say, I know that the main scheme is to work the ball down the field somehow and deposit it over the line at the other end, and that, in order to squelch this programme, each side is allowed a certain amount of assault and battery and do things to its fellow-man which, if done elsewhere, would result in fourteen days without the option, coupled with some strong remarks from the Bench. But there I stop. What you might call the science of the thing is to Bertram Wooster a sealed book. [...]
[...]
"[...] Besides," he went on, in a quiet meditative voice, "there is no power on earth that could get me off this field until I've thoroughly disembowelled that red-haired bounder. Have you noticed how he keeps tackling me when I haven't got the ball?"
"Isn't that right?"
"Of course it's not right. Never mind! A bitter retribution awaits that bird. I've had enough of it. From now on I assert my personality."
"I'm a bit foggy as to the rules of this pastime," I said. "Are you allowed to bite him?"
"I'll try, and see what happens," said Tuppy, struck with the idea and brightening a little.
[From The Ordeal of Young Tuppy]
[...]
"[...] Are you in pain, sir?" he asked, observing me writhe.
"No, just chafing. This has shocked me, Jeeves. I wouldn't have thought such an idea would ever have occurred to her. One could understand Professor Moriarty, and possibly Doctor Fu Manchu, thinking along these lines, but not a wife and mother highly respected in Market Snodsbury, Worcestershire."
"The female of the species is more deadly than the male, sir. [...]"
[From Jeeves makes an Omelette]
[...]
"Honoria Glossop," I wrote, "was one of those large, strenuous, dynamic girls with the physique of a middleweight catch-as-catch-can wrestler and a laugh resembling the sound made by the Scotch Express going under a bridge. The effect she had on me was to make me slide into a cellar and lie low there till they blew the All Clear."
[...]
"Your hearing, like Dobson's, is acute?"
"Extremely, sir. And Mrs. Travers has a robust voice. I received the impression that she was incensed."
"She was as sore as a gumboil. And why? Because I stoutly refused to play Santa Claus at the Christmas orgy she is giving at Brinkley for the children of the local yokels."
"So I gathered from her obiter dicta, sir."
"I suppose most of the things she called me were picked up on the hunting field in her hunting days."
"No doubt, sir."
"Members of the Quorn and Pytchley are not guarded in their speech."
"Very seldom, sir, I understand."
"Well, her efforts were ... what's that word I've heard you use?"
"Bootless, sir?"
"Or fruitless?"
"Whichever you prefer, sir."
"I was not to be moved. I remained firm. I am not a disobliging man, Jeeves. If somebody wanted me to play Hamlet, I would do my best to give satisfaction. But at dressing up in white whiskers and a synthetic stomach I draw the line and draw it sharply. She huffed and puffed, as you heard, but she might have known that argument would be bootless. As the wise old saying has it, you can take a horse to the water, but you can't make it play Santa Claus."
[...]
"[...] Your ancestors fought in the Crusades and were often mentioned in despatches, and you cringe like a salted snail at the thought of appearing as Santa Claus before an audience of charming children who wouldn't hurt a fly. It's enough to make an aunt turn her face to the wall and give up the struggle. But perhaps," she said, her manner softening for a moment, "you've come to tell me you've changed your mind?"
"I fear not, aged relative."
"Then buzz off, and on your way home try if possible to get run over by a motor bus. And may I be there to hear you go pop."
[...]
"Yes, I think you're right. Jeeves has a great brain."
"What's Jeeves got to do with it?"
"Wasn't it his idea?"
I drew myself up rather haughtily -- not an easy thing to do when you're sitting in an arm-chair. I resent this universal tendency to take it for granted that whenever I suggest some particularly ripe scheme, it must be Jeeves's.
"The sequence was entirely mine."
"Well, it's not at all a bad one. I've often said that you sometimes have lucid intervals."
[...]
"A problem has arisen in the life of a friend of mine who shall be nameless, and I want your advice. I must begin by saying that it's one of those delicate problems where not only my friend must be nameless but all the other members of the personnel. In other words, I can't mention names. You see what I mean?"
"I understand you perfectly, sir. You would prefer to term the protagonists A and B."
"Or North and South."
"A and B is more customary, sir."
"Just as you say. Well, A is male, B female. You follow me so far?"
"You have been lucidity itself, sir."
"And owing to ... what's that something of circumstances you hear people talking about? Cats enter into it, if I remember rightly."
"Would concatenation be the word for which you are groping?"
"That's it. Owing to a concatenation of circumstances B has got it into her head that A's in love with her. But he isn't. Still following?"
"Yes, sir."
"I had to pause here for a moment to marshal my thoughts. Having done so, I proceeded."
"Now until quite recently B was engaged to --"
"Shall we call him C, sir?"
"Caesar's as good a name as any, I suppose. Well, as I was saying, until quite recently B was engaged to Caesar and A hadn't a worry in the world. [...]"
[...]
I've seen heads that were more of a feast for the eye. It was what I would describe as a greasy head. Its summit was moist with hair oil and the face, too, suggested that its proprietor after the morning shave had thought fit to rub his cheeks with butter. But I'm a broad-minded man and I had no objection to him being greasy, if he liked being greasy. [...] It may be that all theatrical agents are. I made a mental note to ask Catsmeat Potter-Pirbright about this.
[...]
"He chiselled Oofy out of two thousand pounds?" I gasped, wondering if I could believe my e. Oofy is the Drones Club millionaire, but it is well known that it's practically impossible to extract as much as five bob from him without using chloroform and a forceps. Dozens have tried it and failed.
[...]
In a broken voice I supplied her with the facts and was surprised and touched to find her sympathetic and understanding. It's often this way with the female sex. They put you through it in no uncertain terms if you won't see eye to eye with them in the matter - to take an instance at random - of disguising yourself in white whiskers and stomach padding, but if they see you are really up against it, their hearts melt, rancour is forgotten and they do all they can to give you a shot in the arm. It was so with the aged relative. Having expressed the opinion that I was the king of the fatheads and ought never to be allowed out without a nurse, she continued in a gentler strain.
"But after all you are my brother's son whom I frequently dandled on my knee as a baby, and a subhuman baby you were if ever I saw one, though I suppose you were to be pitied rather than censured if you looked like a cross between a poached egg and a ventriloquist's dummy, so I can't let you sink in the soup without a trace. I must rally round and lend a hand."
[From Jeeves and the Greasy Bird]
|
|
| ||||||||||
