1. Here we have our first two descriptions of Market Blandings, (A). Not a very favourable first impression in Chapter Five of Something Fresh (1914) when Ashe Marson and Joan Valentine disembarked at the train station to begin their scarab-hunting adventure. But the little town seemed much more inviting in Chapter Ten of Leave it to Psmith (1923) when Eve Halliday, (X), was soothed by the sight of the place, little knowing that it would be the last soothing moment vouchsafed to her until the embrace and slow fade at the end of the book.

2. Cyril "Barmy" Fotheringay-Phipps found himself at something of a loose end on a Sunday while he and Reginald "Pongo" Twistleton-Twistleton were camped out at the Goose and Grasshopper in Maiden Eggesford, (B), while competing for the affections of the vicar's daughter, Angelica Briscoe. As we mentioned in the introduction to this week's quiz, rural School Treats are things to be avoided at all costs, something Pongo will vouch for, while Barmy would insist on adding Mothers' Outings to the list after their misadventures as chronicled in "Tried in the Furnace" from Young Men in Spats.

There is, by the way, some circumstantial evidence to suggest that Bertie Wooster may have been present at the Drones Club when this story was told, either as the anonymous Crumpet doing the story-telling or as one of the Eggs doing the listening. As more than one of you have pointed out, some years later Mr Wooster used a very similar sentence to describe Maiden Eggesford in the volume of his autobiography titled Aunts Aren't Gentlemen.

3. Elizabeth Boyd, (Y), a bee-keeper near the village of Brookport on Long Island, was trying to frighten away her brother's guest, William Chalmers, (Z), unaware that Mr Chalmers was actually the despised Lord Dawlish, who had in her view chiselled the Boyd siblings out of their uncle's inheritance. From Chapter 9 of Uneasy Money.

4. Stuck in the rural backwater of Steeple Bumpleigh, (C), without a costume mere hours before he was expected to attend a fancy dress ball in nearby East Wibley, Bertie Wooster needed a miracle. Fortunately Jeeves was able to supply one in Chapter 25 of Joy in the Morning.

Round 182 - 18 March 2004

1. In his hour of need Mr Maginnis, (A), the proprietor of Shamrock Hall, turned to his rambunctious friend Bat Jarvis, (B), to maintain the peace on his premises, and the Groome Street Gang was formed. From Chapter Four of Psmith, Journalist.

2. In Chapter Three of A Gentleman of Leisure (US The Intrusion of Jimmy) the reader is introduced to that King of Graft, New York Police Captain John McEachern, (D), by birth an English gentleman named John Forrest, (C).

3. The heroic attempt by Sigsbee H. Waddington, (E), to track down New York police officer Garroway, (F), was rendered null and void by Mr Waddington's faulty memory, which led him to spend the evening scouring Manhattan for policemen named Mulcahy, Garrity, Murphy and, last but not least, Gallagher. From Chapter Seventeen of The Small Bachelor. There was another spot of dialogue in The Small Bachelor that I was tempted to use in this Quiz, but I finally rejected it on the grounds that it wasn't quite the right spirit for a Saint Patrick's Day celebration. I allude to the brief conversation in Chapter Eleven between George Finch and the butler Ferris, who explained he disapproved of his colleagues in the servants' hall because "Many of them are Swedes, sir, and the rest are Irish." Subsequent inquiry revealed that Ferris disapproved of Swedes because "their heads are too square" and disliked the Irish "because they are Irish."

4. Professor Patrick Derrick of the University of Dublin exploded like a bomb after being lectured on "the Irish question" by Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge, (G), to the alarm of the narrator Jeremy Garnet, who was in love with the professor's daughter but, in the professor's view, tainted by his association with Ukridge. The professor's explosion climaxed a disastrous dinner party described in Chapter Eight of Love Among the Chickens.

Round 183 - 26 March 2004

1. In Chapter Twenty of Right Ho, Jeeves the sublimely talented Brinkley Court chef Anatole made it clear to his employer, Mrs TP Travers, that he was in no mood to be trifled with after the unexpected appearance of a fish-faced freak making faces at him from the other side of his bedroom skylight.

2. Not content with forcibly ejecting his employer JB Duff, (A), from his own office, Duff and Trotter staff artist Joss Weatherby, (B), went on to describe to Mr Duff with gruesome details the consequences should he (Duff) attempt to return to his (Duff's) office before he (Joss) had concluded his conference with The Most Wonderful Girl In The World (Sally Fairmile). From Chapter Four of Quick Service.

3. Vera Prebble, (F), former housemaid to Isadore Fishbein, (C), Ben Zizzbaum, (D), and (E), Jacob Schnellenhamer, was about to begin her new career as motion picture star Minna Nordstrom, (G), by force-feeding a recitation of `The Charge of the Light Brigade' to her helpless employers. From "The Rise of Minna Nordstrom", which is collected in Blandings Castle and Elsewhere and also in The World of Mr. Mulliner.

4. The Wyvern Hall cook, 15-year-old Evangeline Trelawney, (X), reacted with spirit when upbraided about the quality of her work by her
employer, Colonel Aubrey Wyvern, (Y), leaving the unfortunate butler Bulstrode to face his master's wrath. The spot of unpleasantness was described in Chapter Sixteen of Ring For Jeeves (US title The Return of Jeeves).

Round 184 - 5 April 2004

1. In the opening paragraph of Piccadilly Jim we were given a look at the exterior of the New York residence of Mr Peter Pett (A), his wife Nesta, her son Ogden and Mr Pett's niece, Ann Chester.

2. Sir Buckstone Abbott, (B), looked with disfavour at his Berkshire ancestral home, Walsingford Hall, in Chapter Two of Summer Moonshine. As a side-note, in his book In Search of Blandings, NTP Murphy identified the real-life model for Walsingford Hall as the Château Impney Hotel in Droitwich and provided readers with pictorial evidence that settled the matter beyond a shadow of a doubt.

3. Mr J Wellington Gedge, (C), was pining for the delights of his native Glendale, California and looked with a jaundiced eye on the Château Blissac, the country house rented by his wife in the Brittany resort of St Rocque. From Chapter One of Hot Water.

4. That brilliant young scientist and inventor Wilfred Mulliner, (D), was on a rescue mission to ffinch Hall in Yorkshire, the home of Sir Jasper ffinch-ffarrowmere, Bart, his daughter Angela, their butler Murgatroyd, (E), and an aged cook, name unknown. From the short story "A Slice of Life", which is collected in Meet Mr Mulliner.

Round 185 - 13 April 2004

1. The singer is George Mulliner. ("The Truth About George", Meet Mr Mulliner)

2. The singer is Cora Bellinger; her audience consists of Tuppy Glossop and Bertie Wooster. ("Jeeves and the Song of Songs", Very Good, Jeeves)

3. The Singing Detective (or pseudo-detective) is JG Miller, alias J Sheringham Adair. (Money in the Bank, Chapter 16)

4. Jerry Shoesmith was the reluctant (and ghastly) singer at the ship's concert; the ministering angel (G) is Kay Christopher. (Frozen Assets, US title Biffen's Millions, Chapter 2)

Extra credit: Lord Emsworth (Sunset at Blandings, Chapter 14)

Round 186 - 21 April 2004

1. The dancers are Bill (known for short as William FitzWilliam Delamere Chalmers, Lord Dawlish) and the Good Sport, in the act of making Reigelheimer's a devastated area. (Uneasy Money, Chapter 6)

2. Smallwood Bessemer is, as usual, giving unwanted advice, this time to his fiancée (ex-fiancée by the end of the passage), Celia Todd. ("Tangled Hearts," Nothing Serious)

3. Henry Wallace Mills is the eager student of the dance; he hopes to surprise his wife, Minnie – and he will. ("The Man with Two Left Feet," The Man with Two Left Feet)

4. Hugo Carmody is regaling Sue Brown with tales out of dancing school. (Summer Lightning, US title Fish Preferred, Chapter 4)

Extra Credit: According to Valerie Twistleton, Horace Davenport dances like a dromedary with the staggers. (Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Chapter 1)

Round 187 - 29 April 2004

1. Rupert Baxter is the man who wants to murder Beach and James the footman and dance on their graves (efficiently, one presumes). (Summer Lightning, US title Fish Preferred, Chapter 14)

2. Oofy Prosser is the man longing to dance on Bingo Little's mangled corpse in hobnailed boots. ("Sonny Boy", Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)

3. This time Lord Ippleton, father of Mabel Murgatroyd, is the one dreaming of dancing on Bingo's remains. ("Bingo Bans the Bomb", Plum Pie)

4. Sidney McMurdo longs to dismember and dance on Harold Pickering. ("Scratch Man", A Few Quick Ones; also in the US edition of Eggs, Beans and Crumpets)

Extra Credit: Horace Wanklyn, like many before him, wants to wreak vengeance on Stanley Featherstonehaugh Ukridge. ("A Tithe for Charity", A Few Quick Ones, UK edition only)

Round 188 - 7 May 2004

1. Bertie Wooster, startled by the sight of Sir Roderick Glossop posing as the butler Swordfish, has spilled tea on Aubrey Upjohn, MA. (Jeeves in the Offing, US title How Right You Are, Jeeves, Chapter 4)

2. Lancelot Bingley and Gladys Wetherby are sneaking downstairs to steal a cigar with Lancelot's fingerprints before Scotland Yard can test it. ("A Good Cigar Is a Smoke", Plum Pie)

3. Clarence Mulliner ("The Romance of a Bulb-Squeezer", Meet Mr Mulliner)

4. The Rev. Harold "Stinker" Pinker (The Code of the Woosters, Chapter 8)

Round 189 - 17 May 2004

1. The singer is Bertie Wooster’s Uncle Percival, Lord Worplesdon (B), who may have learned the chanty from J Chichester Clam (C). The cyclist is Stilton Cheesewright (A) [Joy in the Morning, ch. 29].

2. The mighty singer in the bath-tub is Hugo Carmody (D), in conversation with Dr Alexander Twist. The man who needs his shower is Hugo’s uncle, Lester Carmody [Money for Nothing, ch. 2].

3. Bath-tub artist Ivor Llewellyn (E) and Ephraim Trout (F) are talking about the tangled love affair of Joe Pickering (G) and Sally Fitch (H) [Bachelors Anonymous, ch. 10].

4. The slug-killing bathing bard is Lord Marshmoreton, whose high spirits have prompted gossip between the butler Keggs (I) and his lordship’s valet [A Damsel in Distress, ch. 17].

Round 190 - 25 May 2004

1. Bertie Wooster, having spent the night in durance vile, puts in his breakfast order with Jeeves (A) [Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit, ch. 6].

2. Clarence Mulliner (C) is going to partake of a light breakfast, following the instructions of Tooting East Mayor Jno. Horatio Biggs (B) to his butler Meadows (D) ["Romance of a Bulb Squeezer", in Meet Mr Mulliner].

3. Gordon Carlisle (E) watches while Soup Slattery (F) displays a healthy appetite after spending the night sitting on window-sills [Hot Water, ch. 11].

4. Here we have Sergeant-Major Egbert Flannery (H), reporting to Dr Alexander Twist (I) on the morning appetite of John Carroll (G), Healthward Ho’s latest patient [Money for Nothing, ch. 13].