Animals regularly feature in Plum’s stories. Some, like that pre-eminent porker the Empress of Blandings, play leading, even starring, roles. Others, like the parrot subjected to Pongo Twistleton’s amateur ministrations, are merely peripheral. Others still are catalysts, whose intervention leads to the proper conclusion, but in whose absence all would be lost. A mixture here. The usual bonuses apply.

1. X was ... built for endurance, not speed, but he was making excellent going. He flashed past Y, in a whirl of flying ... and then, proving himself thereby no mere specialist but a versatile all-round athlete, suddenly dived for a tree and climbed rapidly into its branches. His motive, Y readily divined, was to elude a rough, hairy dog which was trolling in his wake. The dog reached the tree a moment after his quarry had climbed it, and stood there, barking.

Identities please. For additional bonus marks, what additional feat of arms was Y to perform of behalf of X?

2. Some minutes later my fellow rooster came out of the silence. No doubt the haughtiness of my manner had intimidated him, for there was a mildness in his voice that had not been there before.

"X"

I turned coldly.

"Were you addressing me, Y?"

"There must be something we can do."

"You might fine the animal five pounds."

"We cannot stay here all night."

"Why not? What’s to stop us?"

That held him. He relapsed into silence once more. And we were sitting there like a couple of Trappist monks when a voice said "Well for heaven’s sake!" and I perceived that Z was with us.

Identities please, and any of the several reasons for the mutual antipathy between X and Y.

3. "... I urged [you] so vehemently to lay X’s second wager off. True, the probability of the double bearing fruit at such odds was not great, but when I saw Y pass us on the way to the starting post I was conscious of a tremor of uneasiness. Those long legs, that powerful rump ..."

Who are discussing whom in such personal terms, and who is X?

4. "Where" inquired X, is that sheep?"

"What sheep?" said his partner.

"The sheep. The sheep I drove into." His eyes rolled. "The best drive I ever made in my life, a drive that would have put me within easy chip shot of the pin, ruined by a blasted sheep. I now wish to be led into the presence of that sheep, so I may strangle it with my bare hands."

What, eventually, did X do to the sheep?

Sport is a regular feature in the various tales. As to be expected of a dedicated golfer, wont to give his address as the Sixth Bunker, Addington, Plum’s golfing stories are classics of the game, but many other sporting references feature. Aunt Dahlia's hunting coloured both her complexion and her character. A mutual love of rugby brought Stinker Pinker and Major Plank together. Bertie's rackets Blue is mentioned from time to time. The sporting instincts of the Drones is bounded only by a reluctance to indulge in physical effort. The usual bonuses, and double marks for making me laugh!

I will be away from my machine for some days, and will be less than punctilious in acknowledging entries. Your pardon, please, but the calls of grandchildren in the run-up to Christmas are paramount (like the call of steak-and-kidney pie).

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1. "Quite an interesting game" said X, "But I find, now that you have explained it, sir, that it is familiar to me, though I have always known it by another name. It is played a great deal in this country."

Y started to his feet. "Is it? And I’ve been five years without finding it out. When’s the next game scheduled?"

"It is known in England as rounders, sir. Children play it with a soft ball and a racket, and derive considerable enjoyment from it. I have never heard of it before as a pastime for adults."

Who is destroying the faith of what baseball addict in exile?

2. (To balance the criticism of baseball....)

"If I see another cricket game five thousand years from now", she said, "that'll be soon enough".

Her companion clearly disapproved of these cracks. He said in a stiff, sniffy sort of way that she had not seen cricket at its best that afternoon, play having been greatly interfered with by rain.

"A merciful dispensation" said the girl. "Cricket with hardly any cricket going on is a lot better than cricket where the nuisance persists uninterrupted. In my opinion the ideal contest would be one where it rained all day and the rival teams stayed home doing their crossword puzzles."

The traffic jam then broke up, and the car shot forward like a B29, leaving the taxi nowhere.

Who overheard whom, and why did he share her prejudices?

3. The Crumpet's manner seemed strange to X. He was looking grave and reproachful, like a Crumpet who considers he has been played fast and loose with. "X", he said, "Fun's fun, and no-one's fonder of a joke than I am, but there are limits. I can see no excuse for a fellow pulling a gag in connection with a race meeting as important as this one"

Who had besmirched the purity of the turf and how had he offended?

4. Whether it was that X pressed too much or pressed too little, whether it was that his club deviated from the dotted line which joined the two points A and B in the illustrated plate of the man making a brassie shot in the Hints on Golf book, or whether it was he was pursued by some malignant faith I do not know. X rather favoured the last theory.

The important point is that, in his thirty-first year, after six seasons of untiring effort, X went in for a championship, and won it.

Who won what championship, and what device saved him from extinction by a skilled and merciless opponent in the final?

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Imposters and impersonations figure largely in the various sagas, whether they are inspired by a sense of personal mischief or pressed into service to help another. A short selection here, with the usual incentives to risk taking!

1. She smiled. "You're looking quite sad, Mr X. Cheer up. You may look like him, but you aren't him - he? -no 'he' is right. .................... it doesn't matter that you are so like Y that his friends come up and talk to you in restaurants. In fact, it's rather an advantage really. I'm sure that if you were to go to my aunt and pretend to be Y, who has come over after all in a fit of repentance she would be so pleased that there would be nothing she wouldn't do for you."

Who is persuading whom to deceive her aunt?

2. ........................ there entered a girl at the sight of whom his head jerked back as if struck by a rock cake.

"Mr X?" she asked, in a charming voice, soft and musical like sheep bells at sunset.

"Absolutely" said Y, coming to one of those instant decisions which were so characteristic of his eager, enthusiastic nature. The idea of not being the man she was looking for seemed to him to be too silly to be entertained for an instant.

It was true, of course, that he had registered a vow to be cold and distant to all girls, but naturally that had never been intended to apply to special cases like this.

Who was seeking whom, and who stepped into the breach. Why was the true X not available to answer to his own name?

3. "I-er-I say," he asked, "do you by any chance know a man named X?"

"X?" said X, springing into dress trousers like a trained acrobat. "Yes. I've met him."

"You're amazingly like him, aren't you?"

X did not reply for a moment. He was tying his tie, and on these occasions the conscientious man anxious to give of his best at the dinner table rivets his attention on the task in hand. Presently the frown passed from his face, and he was his genial self again.

"I'm afraid I missed that. You were saying?"

"You and X look exactly alike, don't you?"

His companion seemed surprised.

"Well that's a thing nobody has ever said to me before. Considering that X is tall and slender - while I am short and stout..."

"Short?"

"Quite short."

"And stout?"

"Extremely stout."

A low groan escaped Y's lips.

Identities please, and who is X pretending to be. For extra marks, the recipe for the specific cure recommended for Y's problems.

4. "No sir. The officers would find a prisoner in the shed. I would advocate substituting you for X."

I stared at the man.

"Me?"

"It is vital, if I may be allowed to point out, sir, that a black-faced prisoner be found in the shed when the moment arrives for the accused to be conducted before Y."

"But I don't look like X. We're built on different lines. Me - slender and willowy, him ... well I don't want to say anything derogatory concerning one who is bound to the aunt of an old friend of mine by ties warmer than those of ... well what I'm driving at is that you wouldn't by any stretch of the imag. call him slender and willowy."

Who is being pressed to impersonate whom? How is the difficulty of the appearance to be overcome?

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Christmas

PG had mixed views of Christmas, as the following might show. It is a pity that he never reported Christmas at Blandings, which, presided over by the majestic Beach, must have been the party to end all parties. As he recorded in his foreword to the later edition of Something Fresh, he was reluctant to describe the meals at Blandings, for fear of making the readers' mouths water excessively, and Christmas would have driven us insane with misplaced envy. Anyway, as it was permanently midsummer at Blandings those accounts would have been only hearsay.

1. "I'm afraid scratching that Monte Carlo trip has been a bit of a jar for you, Jeeves."

"Not at all, Sir."

"Oh, yes it has. The heart was set on wintering in the world's good old Plague Spot. I know. I saw your eyes light up when I said we were due for a visit there. You snorted a bit, and your fingers twitched. I know, I know. And now there has been a change of programme the iron has entered your soul."

Where has Bertie decided to spend Christmas, and why? Why does it turn out for the best that Jeeves has forgotten to cancel the bookings to Monte Carlo?

2. It was Christmas Eve. All day the snow had been falling, and now it lay thick and deep over the countryside. X, his frugal dinner concluded – what with losing his wife and not being able to get any golf, he had little appetite these days – was sitting in his drawing room, moodily polishing the blade of his jigger. Soon wearying of this once-congenial task, he laid down the club and went to the front door to see if there was any chance of a thaw. But no. It was freezing. The snow as he tested it with his shoe, crackled crisply ... He was about to close the door when suddenly he thought he heard his own name called.

"X"

Had he been mistaken? The voice had sounded faint and far away.

Who was calling whom? Where had the caller been that made the return so dramatic?

3. I can still remember thanking with warmth and genuine sincerity an uncle whose annual gift to me consisted of a small box of candy and an orange. But for the modern child you have to do better than that. You have to dig down a bit. You have to strip off a few from the roll. The modern child has no illusions. You can't hand him anything about Santa Claus. He has got your number.

The modern child wakes on Christmas morning – a little late, for he was fox-trotting into the early hours – and rings languidly for Wilberforce, his man, to unwrap the presents. He sneers at the silver cigarette case from Uncle Paul, and gives it to Wilberforce. He exhibits a little excitement at the announcement that Aunt Matilda has given him a new automobile, but relapses into moody gloom when he hears what make it is, for people are no longer buying that sort of car. It is only when dear old grandpa is discovered to have given him a block of Bethlehem Steel that he becomes really cheerful. He instructs Wilberforce to get his broker on the phone first thing when the exchange reopens. He also asks Wilberforce to call up grandpapa and thank him.

Source references, please. (Hint:- not a book, and under an alias)

4. Not a Christmas story, but perhaps a cautionary tale. Some of us, no doubt, will be at risk of charcoal poisoning over the festive season. Where was the first case of this widespread and malignant malady reported? What was the occasion that had led to the victim's exposure, and what was the immediate cause.

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Unwanted Gifts

The chap who coined the phrase 'Tis better to give than to receive' knew what he was talking about, especially at this time of year. The glow-in-the-dark tie, the fruit cake with the weight and texture of one of Ma Balsalm's aptly named rock cakes, the sweater two sizes too small, the model of the Eiffel Tower with "made in China" stamped on the bottom ... we've all had to smile bravely upon the receipt of a ghastly but well-meant present. Can you identify the principals and sources of the following examples?

1. ___(X)___ was trying to get me to go on a round-the-world cruise, and I would have none of it. But in spite of my firm statements to the effect, scarcely a day passed without him bringing me a sheaf or nosegay of those illustrated folders which the Ho-for-the-open-spaces birds send out in the hope of drumming up custom. His whole attitude recalled irresistibly to the mind that of some assiduous hound who will persist in laying a dead rat on the drawing room carpet, though repeatedly apprised by word and gesture that the market for same is sluggish or even nonexistent.

2. 'Do sit down, Master ___(Y)___, and have your tea. I've boiled some eggs for you. I know what a boy you always are for eggs.'

___(Y)___, starting, directed a swift glance at the tray. Yes, his worst fears had been realised. Eggs - and large ones. A stomach which he had fallen rather into the habit of pampering of late years gave a little whimper of apprehension.

3. (...) there was a knock at the door and (....) my landlord entered, bearing gifts. These consisted of a bottle with a staring label and a large cardboard hat-box. I gazed at them blankly, for they held no message for me.

(...) Having now approached the table on which he had placed the objects, I was enabled to solve the mystery of the bottle. It was one of those fat, bulging bottles, and it bore across its diaphragm in red letters the single word "PEPPO". Beneath this, in black letters, ran the legend, "It bucks you up". (...) At this point the hat-box, which had hitherto not spoken, uttered a crisp, sailorly oath, and followed it up by singing the opening bars of "Annie Laurie". It then relapsed into its former moody silence.

4. 'It won't do, Mr ___(Z)___. You remind me of an old cat I once had. Whenever he killed a mouse, he would bring it into the drawing-room and lay it affectionately at my feet. I would reject the corpse with horror and turn him out, but back he would come with his loathsome gift. I simply couldn't make him understand that he was not doing me a kindness. He thought highly of his mouse, and it was beyond him to realize that I did not want it. You are just the same with your chivalry. It's very kind of you to keep offering me your dead mouse, but, honestly, I have no use for it. I won't take favours just because I happen to be female. If we are going to form this partnership, I insist on doing my fair share of the work, and running my fair share of the risks - the "practically non-existent" risks.'

Who were the chivalrous man and the offended girl?

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In Durance Vile

Many Wodehouse characters have spent time in a prison cell. The names Leon Trotzky, Alfred Duff Cooper and Ephraim Gadsby spring to mind as examples of prominent jailbirds but still more characters have been temporarily incarcerated in surroundings far less luxurious than the average jail cell. Can you identify the characters and describe their temporary accommodations from the following examples?

1. It is only an exceptionally mild and easy-tempered man who can receive with equanimity the news that his sister will shortly be taking for better or worse a butler who has recently locked him in the _____________.

2. A grim frown appeared on the baronet's vermilion face.

"I'll bet he hasn't explained why he left me to be cooked in that infernal __________. I was beginning to throw out clouds of smoke when Murgatroyd, faithful fellow, heard my cries and came and released me."

"Though not my work," added the butler.

3. I cannot too strongly recommend those of my readers who are thinking of getting shut up in _______ to abandon the idea, for there is no percentage in it. It's stuffy, it's dark and there's nowhere to sit except the floor. Odd squeaking noises and sinister scratching noises make themselves heard from time to time, suggesting that rats are getting up an appetite before starting to chew you to the bone. After my escort had left me I shuffled about a good deal, with a view to finding some way of removing myself from as morale-testing a position as I had been in since I was so high, but the only method which occurred to me was to catch a rat and train it to gnaw through the door; however, that would take time, and I was anxious to get home and go to bed.

4. Each of these is a sort of Sargasso Sea into which drift all the objects that over the ages have outgrown their usefulness and are no longer needed in the daily life of the home. The one to which ____(X)____ was being invited already contained, among other things, a cracked vase, a broken decanter, a lampshade with a hole in it, several empty bottles, some rubber overshoes and part of a rusty lawnmower. It was on the last named that he barked his shin as he entered, and his cry of agony might have drawn comment from the girl behind the gun, had she not been closing the door at the moment and turning the key in the lock, leaving the world, as the poet Gray would have said, to darkness and to him.

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London Sights

The Tower of London and Madame Tussaud's are all very well, but the canny world traveller knows that London offers much more in the way of unique sights and sounds. Where, for example, would you expect to find the following? As usual, extra points are offered if you supply the source novel or story. In Question #4 the actual description of the London Sight is confined to the final sentence but your Quizmaster, trying to be helpful, added the preceding sentences in the hope that they will be of some assistance to you in tracking down the answer. And, after last week's difficulties, you may be relieved to learn that all of this week's questions qualify as "Prime Plum", taken from the golden years between the two world wars.

1. (...) for years, right back to the time when I first went to school, this bulging relative has been one of the recognized eyesores of London. He was fat then, and day by day in every way has been getting fatter ever since, till now tailors measure him just for the sake of the exercise. He is what they call a prominent London clubman - one of those birds in tight morning-coats and grey toppers whom you see toddling along ________ Street on fine afternoons, puffing a bit as they make the grade.

2. What strikes the visitor to London most forcibly, as he enters the heart of that city's fashionable shopping district, is the almost entire absence of ostentation in the shop-windows, the studied avoidance of garish display. About the front of the premises of Messrs. Thorpe & Briscoe, for instance, who sell coal in _____ Street, there is as a rule nothing whatever to attract fascinated attention. (...) Yet at ten-thirty (....) ___(X)___ (....) had been gazing at it fixedly for a full five minutes. One would have said that the spectacle enthralled him. He seemed unable to take his eyes off it.

(What was it that so captivated X and, in his considered opinion, improved the Thorpe & Briscoe frontage by about ninety-five per cent?)

3. Arriving in the expectation of finding a sort of grey inferno, he appeared to have been plunged into a perfect maelstrom of gaiety. On every side, merry matrons sat calling each other names on doorsteps. Cheery cats fought among the garbage-pails. From the busy public-houses came the sound of mouth-organ and song. While, as for the children, who were present in enormous quantities, so far from crying for bread, as he had been led to expect, they were playing hop-scotch all over the pavements. The whole atmosphere, in a word, was, he tells me, more like that of Guest Night at the National Liberal Club than anything he had ever encountered.

4. It was quiet in the tea-shop at this hour, and the tryst had been arranged with that fact in mind. For this was in all essentials a board meeting of the syndicate, and business men and women do not like to have their talk interrupted by noisy strangers clamorous for food. With the exception of a woman in a black silk dress with bugles who, incredible as it may seem, had ordered cocoa and sparkling limado simultaneously and was washing down a meal of Cambridge sausages and pastry with alternate draughts of both liquids, the place was empty.

(You will already have deduced that this scene took place in a tea-shop. Of the multitude of tea-shops at your disposal in London, we're looking for the location of the one you would select if you wished to drink in the above sight along with your cuppa.)

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Plum's Dumb Chums (Vol 3)

Although we dealt with this subject in Quizzes #57 and 79, the topic has not yet been exhausted. With the promise that you won't have to deal with parrots, alligators, white mice, synthetic gorillas, resourceful hens, swans, owls, snakes or monkeys this week, I offer four more examples of animals, birds and various other what-nots that enter the wonderful world of Wodehouse. The animals in this week's quiz weren't provided with names so you're only being asked to supply the species, a brief re-cap of the circumstances of their appearance and the relevant story or novel.

1. "Take away those ____s."

"_____s, m'lady?"

"Take that sack away from ____(A)____."

___(B)___ understood. If he was surprised at the presence of the younger son of the house in the amber drawing-room with a sack of ____s in his hand, he gave no indication of the fact. With a murmured apology, he secured the sack and started to withdraw. It was not, strictly, his place to carry ____s, but a good butler is always ready to give and take. Only so can the amenities of a large country house be preserved.

"And don't drop the dashed things," urged ___(C)___.

2. The surface of the frame was black with what appeared at first sight to be a thick, bubbling fluid of some sort, pouring viscously to and fro as if some hidden fire had been lighted beneath it. Only after a closer inspection was it apparent to the lay eye that this seeming fluid was in reality composed of mass upon mass of ______s. They shoved and writhed and muttered and jostled, for all the world like a collection of home-seeking City men trying to secure standing room on the Underground at half-past five in the afternoon.

3. Madly confident of being able to make a speedy getaway from the danger zone, I had filled ___(X)___'s bedroom with _____s. I wasted no more time in fruitless regret. I had come down those stairs pretty quick. I went up them even quicker. Unless those ____s were gathered and removed with all possible despatch, the imagination boggled at the thought of what would ensue. (...)

I don't know if you have ever tried to gather ____s. It is one of the most difficult forms of gathering there is. Rosebuds - easy. Nuts in May - simple. But to collect and assemble a platoon of lively young ____s against time is a task that calls for all that a man has of skill and address.

The situation was further complicated by the fact that I could not at the moment recall how many of the creatures I had strewn. (...) It was only now, as I stood stroking my chin reflectively, and trying to remember whether the six I had in my pocket completed the muster-roll, that I appreciated the folly of being casual in matters of this kind.

4. My uncle's hotel is fashionable hotel. Rich Americans, rich Maharajahs, rich people of every nation come to my uncle's hotel. They come, and with them they have brought their pets. Monsieur, it was the existence of a nightmare. Wherever I have looked there are animals. Listen. There is an Indian prince. He has with him two dromedaries. There is also one other Indian prince. With him is (a or an) ______. The ______ drink every day one dozen best champagne to keep his coat good. I, the artist, have my bock, and my coat is not good.

(Is the shiny-coated champagne-guzzler referred to above (a) a horse, (b) an elephant, (c) a giraffe, (d) a hippopotamus, (e) an orangutang or (f) a prize-winning pig? By way of warning, the fact that some of the animals drawn to your attention in this question are not indigenous to India should not be taken as a reason to exclude them from your consideration.)

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Ever remembered minor events through a momentous happening in that year? "1980? Ah! That was the year I won my first football pool". "2000? That was the year I made my first million" ...

Ever used the horse races? Here's your chance.

1. Who married whom the year "Bluebottle" won the Cambridgeshire?

2. What happened to the fortunes of a rather endearing person in the autumn of the year "Yorkshire Pudding" won the Manchester November Handicap?

3. What infamous event took place in the year "Martingale" won the Gold Cup at the Ascot?

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Stephen Fry says – and we all agree with him – that one of the nicest things about Plum is the way he's linked characters across different books, thus giving one a sense of continuity. This week, let's explore some obscure links. The two quotes in each question relate to the same person or incident, but are taken from different books.

1. Not surprisingly, Plum couldn't resist using this author in more than one book

(a) "Yes, sir. X is one of our angry young novelists. The critics describe his work as frank, forthright and fearless"

"Oh, do they? Well, whatever his literary merits, he struck me as a fairly noxious specimen. What's he angry about?"

"Life, sir."

"He disapproves of it?"

"So one would gather from his output, sir."

"Well, I disapproved of him, which makes us all square."

2. If authors abound, can publishers be far behind? Wonder if X in Question 1 ever met Y.

(a) "It has probably not escaped you that I'm a trifle under the influence of the sauce. As who would not be after spending the evening with Y of the firm of … publishers of the book beautiful. I suppose there is no wilder Indian than an American publisher, when he gets off the reservation.

3. This formidable woman will make an archetype Wodehousian aunt some day.

(a) She did not resemble her father, who looked like a cassowary, but suggested rather one of those engravings of the mistresses of Bourbon kings which makes one feel that the monarchs who selected them must have been men of iron, impervious to fear, or else short sighted.

4. The clues below relate to a court case – one which marked a turning point in the life of one young man, and slightly depressed another.

(a) … One of those dull disputes between business firms where Counsel keep handing books to the Judge and asking His Lordship with the greatest respect to cast an eye on the passage marked in pencil on the right-hand page, upon which he immediately looks at the left-hand page.

(b) He had forgotten that he had been briefed to appear in court in the morning on behalf of … and the sunlight was blotted still further from his life, when he did so appear, by the fact that he lost his case, was rebuked by the Judge and harshly spoken to by … who held the view it was only the incompetence of their advocate that had prevented them winning by a wide margin.

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