1. Grayce (A), the wife of Ivor Llewellyn (C), is discussing the matrimonial suitability of James Ponder with her daughter Mavis (B) [Pearls, Girls, and Monty Bodkin, ch. 8].

2. The Bishop of Stortford is explaining to the Rev. Augustine Mulliner (D) how he has just biffed a police constable, modelling his behaviour on that of his ancestor, Bishop Odo (E), although the latter used battle-axes in lieu of Buck-U-Uppo ["Gala Night", from Mulliner Nights].

3. Mike Cardinal (G) is trying to persuade Augustus Robb (F) to crack the Beevor Castle pete, by reminding him of the impressive pedigree of Lord Shortlands (H) [Spring Fever, ch. 14].

4. Bertram, the last of the Woosters (I), is "noticeably deficient in gruntlement" – as Ian put it – as he is looking at the dog Bartholomew with a wild surmise, silent upon a chest of drawers in Gloucestershire [The Code of the Woosters, ch. 8].

Round 252 - 17 November 2005

1. Augustus Whipple, also known as Samuel Galahad Bagshott (A), is looking for Lord Emsworth (B) at the Empress's sty, where Wilfred Alsop (C) has told him his host is awaiting him [Galahad at Blandings, ch. 9].

2. Ferdie the Fly (E) explains to Horace Appleby (D) that Basher Evans is taking early retirement from his safe-blowing career [Do Butlers Burgle Banks?, ch. 7].

3. The narrator, Bertie Wooster, suspects his cousin Thomas (G), the son of his Aunt Agatha (H), of having something to do with the sudden disappearance of the Right Hon. AB Filmer (F) ["Jeeves and the Impending Doom", from Very Good, Jeeves].

4. Agnes Flack (I) discovers that Captain Jack Fosdyke has "Feet of Clay" [from Nothing Serious].

Extra credit: Archie Moffam was saved from an impending doffam (gag courtesy of Arthur Robinson) when a thunderstorm prevented a baseball game from taking place in Indiscretions of Archie, ch. 15. Ian Michaud kindly pointed out that this question could also refer to Peter Baynes, Tommy Heath and Tommy's sister Ella in the short story "Between the Innings", a tale which had completely escaped your quizmaster's notice ... Attaboy, Ian!

Round 253 - 25 November 2005

1. Ginger Kemp is the scrum half who has introduced Sally Nicholas, his future wife, to his cousin, Bruce Carmyle, by hurling her onto Mr Carmyle's toe. (The Adventures of Sally, US title Mostly Sally, Chapter 3)

2. Jeff Miller is the scrum half who had kissed Anne Benedick (C), fiancée of Lionel Green. (Money in the Bank, Chapter 22)

3. Ada Cootes (F) looks like a scrum half, but Horace Appleby (D) doesn't mind. (Do Butlers Burgle Banks?, Chapter 4)

4. Bertie Wooster's Aunt Dahlia (H) also resembles a scrum half. (Much Obliged, Jeeves, US title Jeeves and the Tie That Binds, Chapter 6)

Extra Credit: This passage is from Over Seventy, Chapter 12, "Healthward Ho!" (It originally appeared in a 1954 Punch article, "Smokers of the World.")

Round 254 - 7 December 2005

1. Cora McGuffy Spottsworth (or, as she was called in a previous incarnation, Cleopatra) is wonderful with her mashie niblick, according to Sidney McMurdo. ("Feet of Clay," Nothing Serious)

2. Celia Tennant (C) has biffed George Mackintosh (D) with a niblick because he wouldn't stop talking. He stopped when biffed. ("The Salvation of George Mackintosh," The Clicking of Cuthbert)

3. Lord Tilbury (E) is provided a niblick by Cyril Bunting (F) to deal with a dormant burglar (who turns out to be Lord Tilbury's new nephew-in-law, Edmund Biffen Christopher). (Frozen Assets, US title Biffen's Millions, Chapter 11)

4. Agnes Flack (H) has consented to marry Harold Pickering (G), though the latter never proposed to her. ("Scratch Man," A Few Quick Ones)

5. Ira Nutcombe, according to Jerry Nichols, might have left his money to a Fund for Supplying the Deserving Poor with Niblicks if he hadn't met Lord Dawlish. (Uneasy Money, Chapter 4)

Round 255 - 15 December 2005

1. Although it looks as if Bertie Wooster is doomed to play Santa Claus, Jeeves saves the day once again by suggesting Sir Roderick Glossop for the role, since "his Ho-ho-ho would be more dramatically effective". ("Jeeves and the Greasy Bird", Plum Pie. Fr Rob informs me that in a magazine version of this story, Roderick Spode was assigned the role of Santa Claus.)

2. Percy Pilbeam is greeted as if he were Santa Claus by Lady Constance, Lady Julia, and Sir Gregory Parsloe-Parsloe, who are under the impression that he has Galahad's Reminiscences (which are in fact currently stored inside Empress of Blandings). (Heavy Weather, Chapter 14)

3. As Bertie is about to depart for the Christmas holidays at Bleaching Court, Upper Bleaching, Hants, he receives a rummy telegram, requesting football boots and an Irish water-spaniel, from Tuppy Glossop. ("The Ordeal of Young Tuppy", US title "Tuppy Changes His Mind", Very Good, Jeeves)

4. H is Mr Daniel Brewster, long-suffering father-in-law of Archie Moffam and owner of the Hotel Cosmpolis. (Indiscretions of Archie, Chapter 21)

5. Igor Llewellyn has hired Reggie Tennyson in an attempt to retrieve the smuggled necklace that has been concealed in Gertrude Butterwick's Mickey Mouse. (The Luck of the Bodkins, Chapter 22 of the UK edition, Chapter 25 of the US edition)

Round 256 - 23 December 2005

1. To Beach, clandestinely feeding the stolen Empress of Blandings, Millicent Threepwood's voice sounds like the Voice of Conscience. (Summer Lightning, US title Fish Preferred, Chapter 12)

2. This time the voice is that of young blasted Edwin. (Joy in the Morning, Chapter 13)

3. The Oldest Member serves as the voice of Conscience here, startling the dog Alphonse (the one who makes s.d.a. – sudden darts at the ankles) as he is pinching Horace Brewstridge's golf ball. ("Excelsior", Nothing Serious)

4. Crispin Scrope is the voice of conscience, G his nephew Gerald, and H is Jane Hunnicutt. (The Girl in Blue, Chapter 11)

5. Lord Emsworth, having plugged Baxter with an air gun, fears that his sister Constance may find out. ("The Crime Wave at Blandings", Lord Emsworth and Others)

Round 257 - 6 January 2006

1. After going to the trouble of inserting Empress of Blandings in the bedroom of (A), his niece Veronica Wedge, in order to jump-start her romance with (B), Tipton Plimsoll, the Hon. Galahad Threepwood had little patience with sisters who were blinding and stiffing, not to mention cursing and swearing like bargees. The bargee-like sister mourning the loss of her daughter’s new camisole was Lady Hermione Wedge. From Chapter Eight of Full Moon.

2. An exhibition baseball game between the Giants and White Sox in London brought the roses back to the cheeks of American millionaire J Wilmot Birdsey, (C), in the short story “One Touch of Nature”, which was collected in The Man With Two Left Feet and Other Stories.

3. As far as Sam Shotter, (D), was concerned any day that included a luncheon engagement with Kay Derrick qualified as the maddest, merriest day of all the glad New Year. From Chapter Eighteen (“At a Luncheon Table”) of Sam the Sudden (US title Sam in the Suburbs).

4. In this scene from Chapter Twenty-four of Uneasy Money, London lawyer Jerry Nichols, (F), personally travelled to Long Island with the latest stop-press news about the last will penned by the eccentric Ira J Nutcombe, (G), news that brought a smile to the face of the old boy’s nephew, Claude Nutcombe “Nutty” Boyd, (E).

Round 258 - 14 January 2006

1. In this telephone conversation from “Indian Summer of an Uncle”, which was first collected in Very Good, Jeeves, Aunt Agatha was relieved to be able to inform Bertie Wooster that his Uncle George, Lord Yaxley, had terminated an unsuitable engagement to a young waitress and become affianced to a woman of a sensible age, a certain Mrs Wilberforce, (A). One suspects that Aunt Agatha’s relief was destined to be replaced by some other emotion once she clapped eyes on the future Lady Yaxley but that scene is conspicuous by its absence from her nephew’s memoirs.

2. True love had at last come to middle-aged professional burglar Horace Appleby, (B), and, as he was about to learn in this scene from Chapter Eleven of Do Butlers Burgle Banks?, his passion for Ada Cootes, (C ), was returned.

3. It took mere seconds for that sternest of bachelors, Hollywood lawyer Ephraim Trout, (D), to succumb to the charms, first aid skills, and homemade scones of Amelia Bingham, (E), in Chapter Nine of Bachelors Anonymous.

4. In this phone conversation from Chapter Twenty-Three of Cocktail Time the giddy Phoebe Wisdom informed her relative-by-marriage Lord Ickenham, (G), that she had just accepted a marriage proposal from her brother’s butler, Albert Peasemarch, (H), whose use of the Ickenham System had proved irresistible.

5. Love came to Crispin Scrope, (I), in Chapter Thirteen of The Girl in Blue when Bernadette (“Barney”) Clayborne generously offered to push the local policeman in the brook, a task originally assigned to Crispin by a blackmailing butler.

Round 259 - 22 January 2006

1. The remorseful mother was Jane Bates, temporarily separated from her husband William and sadly neglecting her sacred maternal duties to little Braid Vardon Bates in the short story “Jane Gets Off the Fairway”, which was first collected in The Heart of a Goof (US title: Divots).

2. Kirk Winfield, (B), was in a dreamlike state of ecstasy following the birth of his son William Bannister Winfield, (A), in Chapter Nine of The Coming of Bill. Unfortunately Kirk would soon have differences with his wife Ruth and her Aunt Lora about how to raise the up-and-coming White Hope.

3. In this conversation with his friend Bertie Wooster, (C), young artist Bruce “Corky” Corcoran was lamenting the fact that the marriage of his wealthy uncle Alexander Worple and his new bride, the former Muriel Singer, had been blessed. From the short story “The Artistic Career of Corky”, which has also appeared in print under the title “Leave it to Jeeves” and was first collected in My Man Jeeves.

4. The unlikely parents of the beautiful Emma, an actress who used the stage name Elaine Dawn, (E), are none other than Wilberforce “Battling” Billson, (F), and his Flossie, who starred in several earlier Ukridge stories. We are introduced to the Billsons’ attractive daughter and her unattractive fiancé Roscoe Bunyan, (D), in Chapter Four of Something Fishy (US title: The Butler Did It).

5. The proud parents are Wilfred Mulliner, the scientific brain behind Mulliner’s Magic Marvels, and his wife Angela in the short story “A Slice of Life”, which was first collected in Meet Mr Mulliner.

Round 260 - 30 January 2006

1. (A), the Souper, who answered to the name of Mr Slingsby, was unable to carry through his intention of strangling the narrator, Bertie Wooster, when he fractured an assortment of limbs after stepping on an unexpected golf-ball. From the short story “The Spot of Art”, which was first collected in Very Good, Jeeves.

2. The Efficient Rupert Baxter, (C), alerted by noises in the night, descended the Blandings Castle staircase with a good deal more speed than he had intended after encountering a golf-ball discarded by Freddie Threepwood, (D) at the top of the stairs. Poor old Baxter was in for a disturbed evening in which flower-pots played a prominent role. From Chapter 11 of Leave it to Psmith.

3. Proving her versatility as an animal impersonator, Clarice Fitch, (E), whose impersonation of a sheep grazing on the eighteenth fairway ended abruptly when she stopped Ernest Plinlimmon’s pipterino of a golf-drive with her billowy portions, changed almost instantly into a realistic impression of an angry West African wild-cat. The Oldest Member hastened to warn Ernest that there lurked against his coming an infuriated female explorer whose bite might well be fatal. From the short story “There’s Always Golf”, which was first collected in the British edition of Lord Emsworth and Others and in the American edition of Young Men in Spats.

4. Private Investigator Claude “Mustard” Pott, (G), came to grief when assigned to follow the movements of Valerie Twistleton, (F), AKA “The Subject” on the Drones Club’s golf weekend at Le Touquet. But Mr Pott’s grief was nothing compared to that about to be experienced by his client, Valerie’s fiancé, Horace Pendlebury-Davenport. From Chapter One of Uncle Fred in the Springtime.

5. For the bonus point, Joe Vanringham was delayed in his frantic search for his younger brother Tubby by the exasperating conversational methods of doddering clock-golfer Everard Waugh-Bonner, in this putting-green interview recorded in Chapter 17 of Summer Moonshine.