1. Lord Tilbury had been locked up in the potting shed by zealous Jas Pirbright, the sleepless guardian of the Empress. (Let it be said at once that Lord T. was as innocent as a babe unborn: he had just been offering the noble sow a potato out of the goodness of his pig-loving heart.) Monty Bodkin happened to pass in the vicinity of the shed and heard his ex-employer’s cries for help. Since he was brooding on the likelihood of Lord Emsworth giving him the boot, he thought at first it was the Earl’s voice crying “Get out!”; then that it was a ghost’s. Logic (yes, even Monty can reason quite logically at times) made him reject this hypothesis, however, and eventually he identified the prisoner and set him free. [Heavy Weather, ch. 7]

2. In Ian’s words, Lord Marshmoreton (X) was being bullied by his sister Caroline and his son Percy for having the temerity to publicly announce the engagement of his daughter Maud to an American theatrical composer. But the Earl had himself recently secretly married chorus girl Billie Dore, which would shock his critics into speechlessness. So he proved worthy of his manly ancestors and stood up to his infuriated nearest and dearest. [A Damsel in Distress, ch. 25]

3. Lord Wivelscombe was urging butler Gascoigne (Y) to de-ghost the breakfast table. The alleged spectre was actually Adolphus Stiffham, who was hiding under the table and ensured Gascoigne’s silence, when the latter bent down to have a look, by slipping him purses of gold. [‘The Luck of the Stiffhams’, from Young Men in Spats]

4. Ambrose Wiffin was down to his last sixpence because he had been entertaining two loathsome small boys whom Bobbie Wickham has treacherously foisted on him. So perforce he had to leave a restaurant without tipping the waiter – oh shame! The whole passage is hilarious, but I think the funniest thing of all is the mystic correspondence between the ghosts covering their faces with their winding sheets and the waiter clutching his napkin to his breast. [‘The Passing of Ambrose’, from Mr Mulliner Speaking or other collections]

Round 152 - 23 May 2003

1. She was that immortal character, Madeline Bassett, of course – ‘the sloppiest, mushiest, sentimentalest young Gawd-help-us who ever thought the stars were God’s daisy chain and that every time a fairy hiccoughs a wee baby is born'. [Right Ho, Jeeves, ch. 10]

2. X stands for Bingo: he was Richard (‘Bingo’) Little, and she, the wife of his bosom, was Rosie M. Banks, usually called Mrs Bingo in the canon. In this case, it was a horse called Sarsaparilla that had sadly disappointed Bingo. On another occasion it was Ocean Breeze, of which a thoughtful commentator said “Failed to win! Why, he was so far behind that he nearly came in first in the next race.” [‘The Shadow Passes’, in Nothing Serious]

3. Chimp Twist was trying to show a stiff (soon to be bare) upper lip: he had just been ordered to shave his small waxed moustache – a repulsive thing to all right-minded people – in order to enter Sam Shotter’s service as odd-job man. [Sam the Sudden, ch. 20]

As Angela pointed out, in Pearls, Girls and Monty Bodkin (ch. 3) another prospective employer (Mrs Llewellyn) demanded that Chimp part from his pride and joy, and his thoughts on that occasion were very similar.

4. This question was rather difficult, since the stories in Plum Pie are comparatively little known. Jas Waterbury (the greasy bird) was trying to extort a purse of gold from Bertie Wooster, who was refusing to marry his (the g. b.’s) niece, Trixie. The ex-wrestler was an old acquaintance too: he was Porky Jupp, whom we met in ‘Oofy, Freddie and the Beef Trust’. In that story Porky was deeply enamoured of another niece, Myrtle, as shown in this bucolic passage: ‘On the lawn [Oofy] observed Porky Jupp plucking the petals from a daisy and heard, as he hurried past, his muttered, “She loves me, she loves me not”.’ As a matter of fact, your Quizmistress felt quite cat-in-adage-y while considering those two passages … until she sadistically chose limb-plucking over petal-plucking. [‘Jeeves and the Greasy Bird’, in Plum Pie]

Round 153 - 2 June 2003

1. Monty Bodkin is about to talk French because his fiancee, Gertrude Butterwick, has told him that while on holiday on the Riviera, he must practise his French. (The Luck of the Bodkins, Chapter 1)

2. Charles Edward Biffen is meeting Bertie Wooster in Paris. ("The Rummy Affair of Old Biffy", Carry On Jeeves)

3. Oofy Prosser is the pimpled bird, as described by Bingo Little. ("All's Well with Bingo", Eggs Beans and Crumpets)

4. Tuppy Glossop, suspicious after overhearing Bertie (with the best intentions) disparage him to Angela, is confronting Bertie, suspecting him of being a snake in the g. (Right Ho Jeeves, US title Brinkley Manor, Chapter 15)

5. Bill Hollister and Jane Benedick. (Something Fishy, published in the US as The Butler Did It, Chapter 10)

Round 154 - 10 June 2003

1. Mr Daniel Brewster owns the figure that Professor Binstead (A) covets. (Indiscretions of Archie, Chapter 2)

2. The Infant Samuel at Prayer, prior to its untimely demise at the hands of Aunt Dahlia, belonged to Sir Watkyn Bassett, the noted collector of eighteenth-century cow-creamers. (The Code of the Woosters, Chapter 5)

3. C = Sir Aylmer (Mugsy) Bostock, D = Major Brabazon-Plank; the bust contains jewels that were intended to be smuggled to America in the bust. Shortly after this passage, Plank, at Lord Ickenham's request, busts the bust. (Uncle Dynamite, Chapter 14)

4. E = Molly Waddington, F is her stepmother, and G is the nonentity of the family, Sigsbee H. Waddington. (The Small Bachelor, Chapter 5)

Round 155 - 23 June 2003

1. Sam Marlowe (A) is breaking the news to Mr Bennett (B) that he is about to gain a son-in-law. (The Girl on the Boat, Chapter 14)

2. Joss Weatherby (C) is giving Sally Fairmile a fair and impartial evaluation of her fiance, the Trees-singing Lord Holbeton. (Quick Service, Chapter 15)

3. Gertrude is envying the antiquity of her uncle, Lord Emsworth. ("Company for Gertrude," Blandings Castle)

4. F is Ricky Gilpin, and E is his Uncle Alaric, the Duke of Dunstable. (Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Chapter 13)

5. G is Freddie Widgeon, H is Dahlia Prenderby and her father is Sir Mortimer Prenderby. ("Good-bye to All Cats," Young Men in Spats)

Round 156 - 1 July 2003

1. Gussie Fink-Nottle, suspected by Roderick Spode of two-timing Madeleine Bassett. (Code of the Woosters, Chapter 6. Butterflies also break girls' hearts, according to Sidney McMurdo in "Those in peril on the Tee.")

2. Mitchell Holmes. ("Ordeal by Golf," in The Clicking of Cuthbert)

3. The well-dressed man is Howard Steptoe, decked out by his new valet, Joss Weatherby. (Quick Service, Chapter 14)

4. The beekeeper is Elizabeth Boyd, who is handing the bee-laden frame to her (at the time) unwanted guest William Fitzwilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish, in the hope that a close encounter with bees will cause him to cut short his visit. (Uneasy Money, Chapter 9)

Round 157 - 11 July 2003

1. The two contestants on bicycles are Sandy Callender (miles ahead, and unaware of her pursuers) and Constable Evans, who started in third place but retired from the race on catching the second place contestant, SG Bagshot, who was the prime suspect in the dastardly theft of Beach's pocket-watch. From Chapter Five of Galahad at Blandings.

2. This was Bertie Wooster in the process of being press-ganged into taking an 18-mile bicycle ride from Brinkley Court to Kingham Manor and back in Chapter Twenty-Two of Right Ho, Jeeves. His previous cycling experience included a stunning triumph at the age of 14 in the Choir Boys' Handicap at a village school treat when his half-lap handicap and the unexpected late scratch of odds-on favourite Willie Punting made all the difference, and, during his career at Oxford, a turn or two cycling around the quad while singing comic songs in the nude on bump-supper nights.

3. The People's Pet, Psmith, and his prospective assassin, Comrade Parker, were enjoying a motor-car ride together in Chapter Eighty-Six of The Psmith Omnibus, which seems to work out to Chapter Twenty-Six of Psmith, Journalist.

4. Bolt, the Rudge Hall chauffeur, after declining to provide the Dex-Mayo for the journey, gallantly offered his own personal bicycle to TG Molloy, who was anxious to make the 20-mile journey to Healthward Ho! in Chapter Ten of Money for Nothing.

Round 158 - 21 July 2003

1. A was George Bevan. He had climbed up the sheets thoughtfully provided by Albert in order not to compromise Lady Maud Marsh, on whose balcony rail he had been sitting while Plummer was proposing to her; when the rejected and dejected Plummer announced he’d like a little air, George was threatened with instant discovery. The parallel with Tennyson's "Maud" is striking, but not too close: in the poem the
protagonist has a rendezvous with Maud in the garden after the ball, but they are surprised by her fat brother and rejected suitor. [A Damsel in Distress, ch. 14]

2. B was the well-known young author Ambrose Tennyson, late of the Admiralty. C was the film mogul Ivor Llewellyn (and D was Ambrose’s brother Reggie). [The Luck of the Bodkins, ch. 14]

Further on (ch. 15) the poem ‘Casabianca’ (more commonly known by its first line, ‘The boy stood on the burning deck’), which in our world was written by the Liverpudlian bard Mrs Felicia Dorothea Hemans, was variously attributed to Tennyson (by Ivor Llewellyn, according to Lottie Blossom) and Shakespeare (by Monty Bodkin). A special bonus point to the contestant (whom I shall not name!) who told me that it was Casabianca who wrote 'The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck'!

3. Sam Marlowe (D), who once won three-and-six in a newspaper limerick competition, is courting the red-haired Billie Bennett, having deceitfully persuaded Miss Bennett's former fiancé, Eustace Hignett, to tell him about her taste in poetry. [The Girl on the Boat, ch. 3] Apologies for the typo in the bonus question: what I was looking for was the coincidence of the characters in questions 2 and 3 all being passengers on the SS "Atlantic", albeit in opposite directions.

4. Freddie Widgeon (F) was fated to get into deep waters because of Tennyson's ‘Godiva’. April Carroway’s young sister Prudence, advised by Freddie to model her behaviour on Tennyson's heroines, decided to imitate Lady Godiva, ‘clothed on with chastity’ but nothing else whatsoever. [“Trouble Down at Tudsleigh”]

Round 159 - 31 July 2003

1. Bertie is describing to Jeeves (A) his first meeting with Pauline Stoker (B), who is later to do rather some less metaphorical swimming. [Thank You, Jeeves, ch. 1 “Jeeves Gives Notice”]

2. The awful Master Edward Waller (F) is the mustardologist. C was his father, Mr Waller, and D was poor palateless Prebble. E was Mike Jackson, of course. Psmith was also present but – for once – silent. [Psmith in the City, ch. 17 “Sunday Supper”]

3. Peter Willard (H) and James Todd (J). The prize: staying on (while the loser would slink away) in order to woo Grace Forrester. Bonus question: the other poet implicitly present is Kipling, whose poem "The Betrothed" gave the story its title: “And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a smoke”. [“A Woman is Only a Woman”, in The Clicking of Cuthbert]

4. Claude (“Mustard”) Pott. L was Lord Emsworth, and M was the latter’s son and heir Lord Bosham. Mustard intended to fleece Bosham in the course of “a friendly little game” – and Bosham, the poor mug, actually suggested Persian Monarchs himself! [Uncle Fred in the Springtime, ch. 14]

5. This is from the preface to The Clicking of Cuthbert, later recycled, as some of you pointed out, in the preface to The Golf Omnibus. It refers, of course, to the excerpt in question 3.

Sadly, no-one managed to supply me with any concrete data on the waist measurements of Cortés, Balboa, or any other Conquistador I'm afraid – that will have to remain a mystery.

Round 160 - 13 August 2003

1. Lord Emsworth (= F), dining in the enemy's camp, was overjoyed to hear that the Empress had been found. Once reassured on this essential point, he tottered away from the phone, presumably shedding joyful tears and oblivious to anything else. So poor Hugo Carmody (= E) was left asking an untenanted telephone for Millicent’s (= G’s) hand in marriage. [Summer Lightning, ch. 15 “On the Telephone”]

2. The Mickey Mouse (= K; species mus musculus disneiae) was the jolly brown plush animal Monty Bodkin (= H) had given his beloved, Gertrude Butterwick – it had just been returned to him (through Albert Peasemarch) by the indignant girl. So its continual beaming smile turned the knife in the wound, so to speak. J was Reggie Tennyson, and L was Reggie’s brother Ambrose. [The Luck of the Bodkins, ch. 14]

3. Phoebe Wisdom's brother, Sir Raymond Bastable (= A), was being blackmailed by Lord Ickenham into being nice to his sister. He had prudently dived into the lake, accoutered as he was, because he had to escape an angry swan’s ferocious beak; and he had been advised by Lord Ickenham to gather frogs in order to put them down the back of Gordon Carlisle’s neck, which would compel said Carlisle to disgorge the famous letter. [Cocktail Time, ch. 23]

4. B was that loathsome character, R Jones. The hapless client-to-be was Freddie Threepwood, who was afraid Joan Valentine would sue him for breach of promise, and instructed Jones to get his love letters back at any – well, nearly any – price. [Something Fresh, ch. 2, section 2]