Virtual Bishops

This week’s quiz is not about the real Wodehouse bishops, those delightful prelates who excel at painting statues, plugging policemen in the eye, and imitating cats belonging to the cook. There are also quite a few virtual bishops and archbishops in the canon. Can you identify the following Right Reverend look-alikes?

1. It having been some considerable time since we had foregathered, there ensued, of course, a certain period of leaping about and fraternising. Then, having put away a refresher myself, I escorted her to the car and bunged her in. A___, following my instructions, had placed the small suitcase with the Sinbad in it beneath the front seat, so that it should be under my personal eye, and we were thus all set. I trod on the self-starter and we began the journey, A___ standing on the pavement, seeing us off like an archbishop blessing pilgrims, his air that of one who would shortly be following by train with the heavy luggage.

2. "You rang, sir?" said B___, entering the Byzantine smoking-room some few minutes later.

"Yes," said C___. "B___, I am a plain, rugged man and I do not know all that there is to be known about these things. So do not be offended if I ask you a question."

"Not at all, sir."

"Tell me, B___, did the Duke ever shake hands with you?"

"Once only, sir - mistaking me in a dimly-lit hall for a visiting archbishop."

3. Coolness, skill and science - these had been the qualities in his protégé which had always so endeared him to D___ and had so enriched their respective bank accounts; and now, on the eve of the most important fight in his life, before an audience of newspaper men, he had thrown them all aside and was making an exhibition of himself with a common sparring-partner.

That was the bitter blow to D___. Had this lapse into the unscientific primitive happened in a regular fight, he might have mourned and poured reproof into E___’s ear when he got him back in his corner at the end of the round; but he would not have experienced this feeling of helpless horror - the sort of horror an elder of the church might feel if he saw his favourite bishop yielding in public to the fascination of jazz.

4. This crowning degradation had been reserved for the hitherto blameless F___, who, of all the young men of G___’s acquaintance, had till now appeared to have the most scrupulous sense of his position, the most rigid regard for the dignity of his great name. Yet, here he was, if the carefully considered reports in the daily press were to be believed, spending his time in the very springtide of his life running about London like a frenzied Hottentot, brutally assaulting the police. G___ felt as a bishop might feel if he suddenly discovered that some favourite curate had gone over to the worship of Mumbo Jumbo.

Round 192 - 10 June 2004

Troy

This week’s round is inspired by a recent motion picture, itself based on the works of one of these Greek poet johnnies ... whose verses do not even rhyme. Pshaw!

1. A___’s life had been singularly free from beautiful girls. He did not go out in the evening very much, almost never to parties where such fauna abound, and during office hours a corporation lawyer’s chances of seeing anything in the Helen of Troy class are limited. The impact of B___ was in consequence extremely powerful. He gaped at her like a spectacled goldfish, and it was she who opened the conversation. Her manner was brisk and free from diffidence. If a criticism must be made, it was, if anything, perhaps too firm and authoritative. Her public was not so large that she intended to let a potential reader get away.

Who is the Helen of Troy look-alike? By the way, A’s name is a helpful clue, once you have found it!

2. The effect was magical. We all of us have our Achilles heel, and – paradoxically enough – in the case of the stout young man that heel was his hat. Superbly built by the only hatter in London who can construct a silk hat that is a silk hat, and freshly ironed by loving hands but a brief hour before at the only shaving-parlour in London where ironing is ironing and not a brutal attack, it was his pride and joy. To lose it was like losing his trousers. It made him feel insufficiently clad. With a passionate cry like that of some wild creature deprived of its young, the erstwhile Berserk released the handle and sprang in pursuit. At the same moment the traffic moved on again.

Who is the stout fellow whose sensitive "heel" is probably the only thing he has in common with Achilles (or with Brad Pitt, when it comes to that)?

3. To the management, on the other hand, the vital issue was all this broken glassware. The waiter had risen from the floor, but the glasses were still there, and scarcely one of them was in a condition ever to be used again for the refreshment of Mario’s customers. The head-waiter, swooping down on the fray like some god in the Iliad descending from a cloud, was endeavouring to place this point of view before C___. Assisting him with word and gesture were two inferior waiters – Waiter A and Waiter B.

Can you identify C___, who finds himself in one of the more epic scenes of Homer’s best seller?

4. "Could I speak to you, madam?"

"Yes, D___?"

A closer student of the Greek drama than E___ would have been reminded of a messenger bringing news from Troy, but even now she sensed nothing ominous in the atmosphere.

"It is with reference to the young man F___, madam."

(...)

"F___? Hasn’t he gone?"

"Not yet, madam."

"Then get him out of here immediately," snapped E___, going briskly into her rattlesnake imitation. "I never heard of such a thing. When I fire someone -"

G___ came out of his coma with a start.

"Did you fire F___, honey?"

"Yes, I did. And when I fire someone, I expect them to act like they were fired. So he’s still here, is he, lounging about the place just as if -"

"No, madam. He is in the coal cellar."

What is the name of the young man (F), who managed to work his way into the house like a Trojan horse?

Round 193 - 18 June 2004

Employee-Employer Relations

In Quiz #183 we examined the topic of employee-employer relations from the point of view of the oppressed employer, providing several examples of insolent help giving their bosses the old raspberry. But there are a few examples when the shoe was on the other foot – literally so in the case of Questions #2 and #3.

1. "It happened the first morning we were here. Father wanted his breakfast in bed, so ___(A)___ brought him his breakfast in bed, and naturally the cook, knowing Father was American, took it for granted he would want oatmeal, so she fixed oatmeal. And then it turned out oatmeal was a thing Father doesn't like."

"Many people don't"

" Yes, but he didn't just say so. That wouldn't be Father. No! He waited till ___(A)___ had put the tray down by his bed, and then he lifted the cover off the dish and said, 'What is this? Oatmeal?' and ___(A)___ said, 'Yes, oatmeal.' and Father said in quite a mild, gentle sort of say, 'Ah! Oatmeal?' and ___(A)___ started to leave the room and suddenly something hot and squashy hit him on the back of the head, and there was Father sitting up in bed, digging the spoon in the oatmeal; and __(A)__ was just wondering what it was all about, because the back of his head was all covered with oatmeal, and Father held it at the bottom with his left hand, and at the top with two fingers, and then he let fly rather like one of those old catapults you read about in stories where ancient towns are besieged, and __(A)__ got it all – in the face this time (...) So there was ___(A)___ with oatmeal on the back of his head and oatmeal all over his face, practically a mass of oatmeal, you might say, and then Father smiled a quiet, affectionate kind of smile and said, 'I don't like oatmeal.' And the whole thing has rather preyed on __(A)__'s mind. He's a little cross about it, I'm afraid."

2. "Except for about a couple of hundred a year, the only money __(B)___ had in the world was his salary as secretary to old ___(C)___. And then he lost even that meagre pittance. One morning, happening to stroll into the yew alley at the ancestral seat and finding the young couple locked in a close embrace, the aged parent unlimbered his right leg and kicked ___(B)___ eleven feet, two inches – a record for the midland counties. He then lugged ___(D)___ back to the house, shut her up in her room, handed ___(B)___ a cheque in lieu of a month's notice, and told him that if he was within a mile of the premises at the expiration of ten minutes dogs would be set upon him."

3. ___(E)___ exploded like a bomb. For some moments he had been muttering to himself, and it had been plain that he was not in sympathy with the conscientious objector.

"What's the good of talking to the fellow? Kick him!"

___(F)___ started. It was a thought. "Egad, ___(E)___. I believe you've got something there."

"Grab him by the scruff of the neck and bend him over and leave the rest to me."

"Wait," said ___(F)___. "Not in thin evening shoes. Go and put on your thick boots. And you, ___(G)___, had better be leaving us. The situation is one which strong men must thresh out face to face. Or, perhaps, not face to face exactly –"

___(H)___ had paled. He was essentially a man of peace. "If there's going to be verlance –"

"There is." It was ___(E)___ who had spoken. In his manner there was (...) all the poised authority which had been wont to mark it in the days when, crouched and menacing, he had waited to plunge against the opposing line. "You betcher there's going to be verlance. I'll give you two seconds to change your mind."

___(H)___ changed it in one. "Well, right ho," he said hastily.

(In the above excerpt the threat of violence – or 'verlance', if you prefer it – against (E)'s recalcitrant valet, (H), was enough to bring home the bacon but two chapters later (F), annoyed by a certain lack of discretion in (H)'s conversation – he described the absent (G) as a "cuddly little piece of fluff" – let fly with his size eleven boot at the spot indicated "with a vigour and crispness of follow-through that would have caused even (E) to nod approvingly".)

4. He was now singing. He had a pleasant tenor voice.

"You take the high road / And I'll take the low road, / And I'll be in Scotland a-FORE ye. / For I and my true love / Will never meet again –"

The starlight gleamed on a white-moustached figure.

"On the bonny, bonny BANKS of Loch LO-"

Something whizzed through the night air ... crashed on ___(I)___'s cheek ... spread itself in sticky ruin ...

(Several paragraphs later in the narrative, a neutral observer of the unfortunate incident was willing to give credit where credit was due. "I must confess that my respect for ___(J)___ has become considerably enhanced by tonight's exhibition of marksmanship. Say what you will, there is something fine about our old aristocracy. I'll bet Trotsky couldn't hit a moving secretary with an egg on a dark night.")

Round 194 - 26 June 2004

A Policeman's Lot is Not a Happy One

A few months ago another Quizmaster used as his theme Plummy policemen being roughly treated and – horror of horrors – used a question (the one about Constable Butt being dunked in the pond from the early school novel Mike) that I had planned to use in a similarly themed quiz at some future date. Time marches on, I've found a replacement question, and that future date has now arrived. Once again, you're being asked to supply the names of the police officers and, with the exception of Question #1, their assailants.

1. "God bless my soul, though, you can't compare the lorgnettes of today with the ones I used to know as a boy. I remember walking one day in Grosvenor Square with my aunt Brenda and her pug dog Jabberwocky, and a policeman came up and said that the latter ought to be wearing a muzzle. My aunt made no verbal reply. She merely whipped her lorgnette from its holster and looked at the man, who gave one choking gasp and fell back against the railings, without a mark on him but with an awful look of horror in his staring eyes, as if he had seen some dreadful sight. A doctor was sent for, and they managed to bring him round, but he was never the same again. He had to leave the Force, and eventually drifted into the grocery business. And that is how _____(A)_____ got his start."

2. "Ho!" he said, for, as has been indicated, he was a man of limited conversational resources, and all the woman in ___(B)___ sprang into sudden life. She would have been the last person to affect to know what all this was about, but it was abundantly plain that the man to whom she had given her heart was in the process of getting pinched by the police and only a helpmeet's gentle hand could save him. Reaching in the tool-box, she produced a serviceable spanner and, not letting a twig snap beneath her feet, advanced on the officer from behind. There was a dull, chunky sound as he sank to earth.

(Later, after B's love interest – let's call him C – had made his escape, the following exchange took place between B and the stricken officer.)

It was some moments later that Police Constable ___(D)___ opened his eyes and said: "Where am I?"

"Right here," said ___(B)___. "Did you see what hit you?"

"No, I didn't."

"It was that Russian Sputnik thing you've probably read about in the papers."

"Coo!"

3. "I am a member of the plainclothes division of the Metropolitan Police Force. And you're pinched. Step this way, please."

___(E)___ stepped that way, stunned. If old ___(F)___ was really what he claimed to be, and if the old school spirit burned so feebly in him that he was prepared to arrest a chap who had been in the second cricket eleven with him, it seemed to him that there was nothing to do but step.

___(G)___, womanlike, had other views. She took it that she had been included in the (...) invitation, but she had no intention of meekly accepting it. A situation like the present one brings out all the Joan of Arc and Boadicea in a girl of spirit. She was standing at the moment within easy reach of one of the smaller ashcans. Seizing this with a lissom pounce and swinging it, (...) she took advantage of the officer's having turned his back to envelop his head and shoulders with the contents.

4. Can you identify the police detective, H, and his tactful assailant, I?

"Well, it seems to me that what's needed here is tact."

(...)

He waddled over to the table, poured out a glass and bore it to where the Commissaire sat, his arms folded, his face inflexible.

"A spot, moose-yer?" he said winningly. "It's on the house."

___(H)___ was surprised. Early in the proceedings he had observed the champagne – a detective notices everything – but he had entertained no hope of ever being offered any of it. A pleased look came into his face, and his prejudice against Americans waned for the first time in years. He took the glass and sipped genteely. Then, as if feeling that this was no time for half-measures, he drained the beaker to the last drop, and Mr ___(I)___ took it back to the table and re-filled it.

___(J)___ was eyeing the love-feast sourly.

"It won't be any good," he said.

"You don't think he'll soften?"

"No."

"Well, watch him after this one," said Mr. ___(I)____, waddling back to the Commissaire. "It's got a Mickey Finn in it."

(...)

With a suggestion in his manner of one who has been struck by lightning, ___(H)___ was sliding from his chair, and as he nestled on the floor, patently off the active list for a long time to come, Mr ___(I)___ gave a satisfied nod, the sort of nod Michelangelo might have given on completing a masterpiece.

"Didn't I tell you?" he said. "Tact. There's nothing like it."

Round 195 - 5 July 2004

Saved by the Bell

I'm sure we all deplore the physical violence which was such a lamentable feature of the quiz for the last two weeks. It is fortunate that, with the exception of a few incidents involving brazil nuts, air-gun pellets and Mickey Finns, most of the time some sort of mayhem threatens to break out in the canon the prospective victim is saved at the eleventh hour by a spot of quick thinking or some sort of miraculous intervention. Can you identify the thwarted heavies and relieved victims in the following examples?

1. With a steady hand I opened the door. And when ___(A)___ advanced on me like a mass murderer about to do his stuff, I quelled him with the power of the human eye.

"Just a moment, ___(A)___," I said suavely. "Before you give rein, if that's the expression I want, to your angry passions, don't forget you've drawn me in the Drones Club Darts sweep."

It was enough. Halting abruptly, as if he had walked into a lamp-post, he stood goggling like a cat in an adage. Cats in adages (...) let 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would', and I could see with the naked eye that this was what ___(A)___ was doing.

(...) Shooting my cuffs, I resumed. "In what sort of condition will I be in to win that Darts tourney and put nearly sixty quid in your pocket, if you pull the strong-arm stuff you are contemplating? Try that one on your bazooka, my dear ___(A)___."

2. ___(B)___ gave a hitch to his shoulder muscles, which were leaping about under his pullover like adagio dancers. His scrutiny, already narrow, became narrower.

'So it was all a vile plot, was it?"

"No, no."

"Of course it was a vile plot," said ___(B)___ petulantly, breaking off a corner of the mantelpiece and shredding it through his fingers. "You gave me that advice about going out and making passes purely in order that you should be left free to steal ___(C)___ from me. If that wasn't a vile plot, then I don't know a vile plot when I see one. Well, well, we must see what we can do about it."

It was the fact that ___(D)___ at this moment sprang nimbly behind the table that temporarily eased the strain of the situation. For as ___(B)___ started to remove the obstacle, his eye fell on the insurance policy. He stopped as if spellbound, staring at it, his lower jaw sagging.

___(D)___, scanning him anxiously, could read what was passing through his mind. ___(B)___ was a lover, but he was also a second vice-president of the Jersey City and All Points West Mutual and Co-operative Life and Accident Insurance Company, an organization which had an almost morbid distaste for parting with its money. If as the result of any impulsive action on his part, the Co. were compelled to pay over a large sum of money to ___(D)___ almost before they had trousered his first cheque, there would be harsh words and raised eyebrows. He might even be stripped of his second vice-president's desk in the middle of a hollow square. And next to ___(C)___ and his steel-shafted driver, he loved his second vice-presidency more than anything else in the world.

3. "Gee!" said ___(E)___, and it was at this point that he folded ___(F)___ in his embrace and started to kiss her. (....) In defence of ___(E)___ there are several extenuating points to be urged. (...) It was unfortunate that none of these arguments presented themselves to ___(G)___ as he turned the corner. In ____(E)____ he saw just another libertine, flitting from flower to flower and sipping, and we are already familiar with his prejudice against libertines. His impulse on seeing one, we recall, was to pull his head off at the roots and rip his insides out with his bare hands and it was with this procedure in mind that he now advanced on the entwined pair. He gripped ___(E)___ by the coat collar and tore him from the clinch, and he would have almost certainly started to detach his head, had not ___(F)___ uttered a piercing cry.

"Don't kill him, ___(G)___! He's my publisher."

4. "Listen!" said ___(H)___, backing towards the window. "I can explain everything."

"There is no need of explanations, ___(H)___," said ___(I)___. He had rolled up the left sleeve of his coat and was beginning to roll up the right. He twitched his biceps to limber it up. "The matter explains itself."

____(H)___'s Aunt ___(J)___, who had been standing under the curtain making chirruping noises, came back to the group in no agreeable frame of mind. (...) "If I may use your telephone, ___(H)___, I would like to ring up my lawyer and disinherit you. But first," she added to ___(I)___, who was now inhaling and expelling the breath from his nostrils in rather a disturbing manner, "would you oblige me by thrashing him within an inch of his life?"

(Following another page of dialogue in which a third person, brandishing her heaviest parasol, pleaded to have first whack as she had her heart set on "tearing (H) into little shreds", it was agreed that (I) was the best person for the job.)

___(J)___ (...) nodded brightly at ___(I)___. "Please go on, Mr ___(I)___."

___(I)___ bowed with a formal word of thanks. And, turning, was just in time to see ___(H)___ disappearing through the window.

The fact is, as this dialogue progressed, ____(H)___ had found himself more and more attracted to that open window. It had seemed to beckon to him. And at this juncture (....) he precipitated himself into the depths and, making a good landing, raced for the open spaces at an excellent rate of speed.

That night, heavily cloaked and disguised in a false moustache, he called at my address, clamouring for tickets to Switzerland.

Round 196 - 13 July 2004

Smokers Anonymous

In this age of "No Smoking" regulations everywhere you turn, it's amusing to read of an era when anti-smoking zealots were almost without exception presented as cranks, misfits, weeds, and fuss-pots while smokers could count on the sympathy of the reader every time. With one notable exception, that is. It must be admitted that the smoker in Question Number Four is a singularly unsympathetic character.

Can you identify the rebellious tobacco addicts and their crusading enemies in the following examples?

1. "For do you realize, ___(A)___, that my aunt says I mustn't smoke
while I'm here?"

"Indeed, sir?"

"Nor drink."

"Why is this, sir?"

"Because she wants me – for some dark and furtive reason which she will not explain – to impress a fellow named ___(B)____."

"Too bad, sir. However, many doctors, I understand, advocate such abstinence as the secret of health. They say it promotes a freer circulation of blood and insures the arteries against premature hardening."

"Oh, do they? Well, you can tell them next time you see them that they are silly asses."

"Very good, sir."

2. "___(C)___," she cried. "You smell of tobacco-smoke."

___(C)___ looked embarrassed.

"Well, the fact is, mother –"

A hard protuberance in his coat-pocket attracted Mrs. ___(D)___'s notice. She swooped and drew out a big-bowled pipe. (...)

"Don't you know," cried Mrs. ___(D)___, "that smoking is poisonous, and injurious to the health?"

"Yes, but the fact is, mother –"

"It causes nervous dyspepsia, sleeplessness, gnawing of the stomach, headache, weak eyes, red spots on the skin, throat irritation, asthma, bronchitis, heart failure, lung trouble, catarrh, melancholy, neurasthenia, loss of memory, impaired will-power, rheumatism, lumbago, sciatica, neuritis, heartburn, torpid liver, loss of appetite, enervation, lassitude, lack of ambition, and falling out of hair."

"Yes, I know, mother. But the fact is, Ted Ray smokes all the time he's playing, and I thought it might improve my game."

3. Frequently, therefore, even in this peaceful haven, you will hear voices raised, tables banged, and tenor Permit-me-to-inform-you-sir's competing with baritone And-jolly-well-permit-me-to-inform-you's. I have known fists to be shaken and on one occasion the word "fat-head" to be used.

Fortunately, Mr. ___(E)___ is always there, ready with the soothing magic of his personality to calm the storm before things have gone too far. Tonight, as I entered the room, I found him in the act of intervening between a flushed ___(F, two words)___ and a scowling ____(G, three words)____ who had fallen foul of one another in the corner by the window.

"Gentlemen, gentlemen," he was saying in his suave, ambassadorial way, "what is all the trouble about?"

The ___(G)___ pointed the stem of his pipe accusingly at his adversary. One could see that he was deeply stirred.

"He's talking rot about smoking."

"I am talking sense."

"I didn't hear any."

"I said that smoking was dangerous to the health. And it is."

"It isn't."

"It is. I can prove it from my own personal experience. "I was once," said the ___(F)___, "a smoker myself, and the vile habit reduced me to a physical wreck. My cheeks sagged, my eyes became bleary, my whole face gaunt, yellow and hideously lined. It was giving up smoking that brought about the change."

"What change?" asked the ___(G)___.

The ___(F)___, who seemed to have taken offence at something, rose and, walking stiffly to the door, disappeared into the night.

4. The ___(H, two words)___ strolled easily into the circle of light. He was wearing a dressing-gown, and in his hand was a smouldering cigarette, from which he proceeded, before continuing his remarks, to blow a cloud of smoke.

"Say, I guess you're wrong. That wasn't any ordinary porch-climber."

The spectacle of his bete noire wreathed in smoke, coming on top of the emotions of the night, was almost too much for Mr ____(I)___. He gesticulated for a moment in impassioned silence, his arms throwing grotesque shadows on the gravel.

"How dare you smoke, boy! How dare you smoke that cigarette!"

"It's the only one I've got," responded the ___(H)___amiably.

"I have spoken to you – I have warned you – Ten bad marks! – I will
not have – Fifteen bad marks!"

The ___(H)___ ignored the painful scene. He was smiling quietly.

"If you ask me," he said, "that guy was after something better than plated spoons. Yes, sir! If you want my opinion, (...) what he was trailing was me. They're always at it. (...) If you don't believe me I can show you the piece there was about it in the papers. I've got a press-clipping album in my box. (...) If you'll come right along, I'll show you the story (...) now. It happened in Chicago, and he'd have got away with me if it hadn't been –"

"Twenty bad marks!"

Round 197 - 21 July 2004

That noted theological scholar Bertram W Wooster once won a prize for Scripture knowledge. Can you match his skill in Biblical allusions?

1. "He appeared to be aiming with it at some object across the street, and do you know, A__, I am strongly inclined to think that this object may quite possibly have been your hat. To my mind, suspicion seems to point that way."

"Who was he?"

"He didn't give me his card."

"But you can describe his appearance."

"Let me try. I can remember a singularly handsome, clean-cut face and on the face a look of ecstasy and exaltation such as Jael, the wife of Heber, must have worn when about to hammer the Brazil nut into the head of Sisera, but ... no, the mists rise and the vision fades. Too bad."

Name the singularly handsome marksman and his victim.

2. "I dare you! I double dare you!"

Suddenly, out of a clear sky, the solution came to me. I have said that I was standing on a flower-bed. This flower-bed, I now perceived, was adorned by a small tree on which the genial California sun had brought out a great profusion of hard, nobbly oranges. It altered the whole aspect of affairs. Say it with oranges! The very thing.

To pluck one and let fly was with me the work of an instant. And conceive my gratification on discovering that B__, whatever his shortcomings in the matter of physique, was an extraordinarily fine shot with an orange. David, having his unpleasantness with Goliath, could not have made better target practice.

Whose arm has launched this missile with such fruitful results?

3. It was plain to him that his ingenious plan of having C__ establish himself at the Hall and pave the way for him to fraternize with the opulent D__ was not going to materialize.

Since leaving school E__ had not devoted much time to the study of the Scriptures, and the stories of the Old Testament had to a great extent passed from his mind. Had this not been so, he would now have been thinking how close was the parallel between his own predicament and that of Moses on the summit of Mount Pisgah. Moses had looked wistfully at a promised land which he was never to reach. He in his mind's eye was gazing with equal wistfulness at a promised millionaire with whom there seemed no chance of ever talking business. It was a galling state of affairs and it is little wonder that he found the whisky and soda turning to ashes in his mouth.

Who is the new Moses?

4. Conditions during the tea hour, the marquee having stood all day under a blazing sun, were generally such that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, had they been there, could have learned something new about burning fiery furnaces ...

All civilized laws had obviously gone by the board and Anarchy reigned in the marquee. The curate was doing his best to form a provisional government consisting of himself and the two school-teachers, but there was only one man who could have coped adequately with the situation and that was King Herod, who – regrettably – was not among those present. Feeling like some aristocrat of the old régime sneaking away from the tumbril, F__ edged to the exit and withdrew.

Identify the edging aristocrat and the location of this uprising.

Round 198 - 29 July 2004

Biblical Animals

Having spent last week with some chaps from the Bible, we now turn to some of our dumb (and, in one case, deaf) chums from the same source. (Apologies to Balaam's ass, Jonah's whale, Jezebel's dogs, and Elijah's bears, who will have to wait for another round.)

1. "Sherry or 'ock, sir?"

A__ could not have explained why this reminder of the butler's presence should have made him feel better, but it did. There was something solid and tranquilizing about B__. He had noticed it before. For the first time the sensation of having been smitten over the head with a blunt instrument began to abate ...

A__ began to sit up and take notice. A cloud seemed to have cleared from his brain. He found himself looking on his fellow-diners as individuals rather than as a confused mass. The prophet Daniel, after the initial embarrassment of finding himself in the society of the lions had passed away, must have experienced a somewhat similar sensation.

Who, and where, is A?

2. "Lunch at the Berkeley," said C__, "costs eight shillings and sixpence. For two, seventeen shillings. Waiter, two shillings. Possibly D__ may like a lemonade or some water of some kind. Say two shillings again. Your hat-check, sixpence. For coffee and unforeseen emergencies, half a crown. If I give you twenty-five shillings, that will be ample."

"Ample?"

"Ample," said C__.

E__ fingered his moustache unhappily. He was feeling now as Elijah would have felt in the wilderness if the ravens had suddenly developed cut-throat business methods.

Name E and his prospective luncheon guest, D.

3. He had no acquaintance, he said, with London's financiers, but suggested that F__ try his uncle, and the next few moments were occupied by F__ in coughing, for he had imprudently laughed heartily while swallowing whisky and soda.

"G__?" he gasped when he had recovered. "He's nearly as broke as I am. Think again."

H__ thought again. Like all lovers, he had total recall where the loved one's utterances were concerned, and there came back to him what I__ had said when buying chocolate bars.

"There's an American millionaire staying with your uncle."

F__ sat up with a jerk. The Biblical horse that said "Ha, ha" among the trumpets could not have displayed more animation.

Name the modern counterpart of the Biblical horse. (To tie this in with the previous passage: F is a Drone, and his uncle, G, has "advanced the theory that the ravens fed him".)

4. "I spoke at some length on the folly of plunging into matrimony."

"Oh, did you?"

"I did."

"I'm sorry. I missed it."

"Oh?"

"I was thinking of something else."

"Oh?"

"You know how it is when you're thinking of something else."

"Quite," said J__ icily.

He was deeply offended. He was not accustomed to mixing with deaf adders. Even K__, though in the end becoming violent, had listened. For an instant he almost decided to withdraw from his mission and allow L__ to rush into ruin in the manner popularised by the Gadarene swine.

Name J, the benefactor who is attempting to save L from himself.

Extra credit: Identify the prodigal in the following passage:

The spirit of optimism and joviality which has just been shown sweetening the daily round of Number 9, Marmont Mansions, Battersea, had found during the week which had passed since M__'s arrival no counterpart at Holly House, Wimbledon. In spite of the fact that the return of prodigals is almost proverbially associated with joyful revellings and effervescent gaiety on the part of the whole strength of the company, with the possible exception of the fatted calf, M__ had found little to cheer her in the atmosphere of her revisited home....

Round 199 - 10 August 2004

Boy Scouts

This week's Quiz is on what Wodehouse describes in The Swoop as "with the possible exception of the Black Hand ... the most carefully-organised secret society in the world": the Boy Scouts. Your assignment is to identify the following Boy Scouts, actual and metaphorical (is metaphorical the word? Jeeves would know). Be prepared!

1. "Have you ever been a Boy Scout?"

A__ said he hadn't.

"I was at one time, and I have never forgotten the lessons I learned in those knickerbocker and spooring days."

"Tying knots, do you mean, and lighting fires by rubbing sticks together?"

"Not so much that as the doing-one's-daily-good-deed routine. Boy Scouts, as you probably know, are supposed to perform at least one act of kindness every twenty-four hours, and a very good thing, too. Keeps them up on their toes."

"Yes, I can see that. It would, of course."

"Now, one rather tends, as one grows older, to give the daily good deed a miss, and it's all wrong, one shouldn't. There is no reason whatever why, just because one no longer goes about in a khaki shirt with a whistle attached to it, one should omit those little acts of kindness which sweeten life for all and sundry. One ought to keep plugging away. This came to me very forcibly now, as I sat thinking about this sweepstake thing we're having. Is it right, is it fair, I asked myself, that I, to whom money means nothing, should have drawn the favourite, while somebody who really needs the stuff, like my old friend A__, gets stuck with a rank outsider?"

2. He had bought B__'s chocolates that morning at the famous Regent Street establishment of Duff and Trotter, and it was while he was passing from the confectionery department into that devoted to what the firm described as Picnic Goods that his eye had fallen on a large, and quite evidently succulent, pork pie. With a considerateness which did him credit, he had purchased it for C__. It was just these little acts of kindness, he had reflected, that raised Man, the Boy Scout, above the beasts that perish.

3. "You poor ass, I was thinking that this was just the sort of thing that would suit your aunt."

"Ah!" D__'s tone changed. "I begin to follow. I begin to see the idea. A job for Aunt E__, eh? This sounds good. I take it there's money in this chaperoning, what?"

"Of course there is. Pots of money."

"And she could do with it, poor, broken blossom!" said D__. "It'll be like manna in the wilderness."

"Well, ring her up and tell her about it. If it comes off she may give you a bit of the proceeds."

"May?" said D__. "How do you mean, may? I shall naturally insist on an exceedingly stiff commission, which you and I will, of course, split fifty-fifty – you having provided the commercial opening and I the aunt."

"Not me," said F__, "I'm not in on this. I'm just Santa Claus."

D__ seemed stunned.

"F__! This is noble. That's what it is. Noble. It's the sort of thing Boy Scouts do."

4. "Well, you've properly messed things up," I said.

"It didn't all work out quite the way I meant," he admitted. "But I wanted to do my last Friday's act of kindness."

At these words, all was suddenly made plain to me. It was so long since I had seen the young poison sac that I had forgotten the kink in his psychology which made him such a menace to society.

This G__, I now recalled, was one of those thorough kids who spare no effort. He had the same serious outlook on life as his sister H__. And when he joined the Boy Scouts, he did so resolved not to shirk his responsibilities. The programme called for a daily act of kindness, and he went at it in a grave and earnest spirit. Unfortunately, what with one thing and another, he was always dropping behind schedule, and would then set such a clip to try and catch up with himself that any spot in which he happened to be functioning rapidly became a perfect hell for man and beast.

Extra credit: Identify the owner of the Boy Scout knife:

"There is a great glamour about Mr. I__," said J__. "We women admire men who do things. A girl cannot help but respect a man who once killed three sharks with a Boy Scout pocket-knife."

"So he says," growled K__.

"He showed me the pocket-knife," said the girl, simply.

Round 200 - 18 August 2004

Blackmail

Having had quizzes on the Bible and Boy Scouts, we continue with the third B: Blackmail. To quote that authority on the subject, Dahlia Travers: "Good old blackmail! You can't beat it."

1. "Didn't I tell you, A__? Wasn't I right? Didn't I say the child of unmarried parents would blackmail me?"

A fellow with the excess weight of B__ finds it difficult to stiffen all over when offended, but he stiffened as far as he could. It was as if some shareholder at the meeting had said the wrong thing.

"Blackmail?"

"That's what I said."

"It is not blackmail. It is nothing of the sort."

"He is quite right, madam," said C__, appearing from nowhere. I'll swear he hadn't been there half a second before. "Blackmail implies the extortion of money. Mr. B__ is merely extorting a cook."

"Exactly. A purely business transaction," said B__, obviously considering him a Daniel come to judgment.

"It would be very different," said C__, "were somebody to try to obtain money from him by threatening to reveal that while in America he served a prison sentence for bribing a juror in a case in which he was involved."

Name the man who is learning that blackmail (or extortion) is a double-edged sword.

2. "You realize, of course, that you are a lop-eared blackmailer?"

"Yes, sir."

"And you don't shudder?"

"No, sir."

"Then there is no more to be said."

"You will find pen and ink on the writing-table, sir."

D__ made his way slowly to the writing-table, and took pen in hand.

"Well, it's a comfort to think that this sort of thing is bound to grow on you and that eventually you will get it in the neck," he said. "I can read your future like a book. Before long another opportunity of stinging some member of the general public will present itself, and you will be unable to resist it. And after that you will go on and on, sinking deeper and deeper into the mire of crime. The appetite grows by what it feeds on, E__."

"Yes, sir."

"You don't feel like pulling up while there is yet time?"

"No, sir."

"Just as you say. Let us hurry on, then, to the melancholy end. You will, as I say, go on and on, blackmailing the populace like nobody's business, until one day you make that false step which they all make and – bingo! – into the dock for yours, with the judge saying, "Well, prisoner at the bar, it's been nice knowing you–" And then off to the cooler for an exemplary sentence. I shall come on visiting days and make faces at you through the bars."

Again, name the blackmailer, and his prospective victim.

3. "Don't talk so much, F__!"

F__ felt the justice of the rebuke. He apologized.

"I'm sorry. A bad habit of mine, which I will endeavour to correct. What were you going to say about G__?"

"She's a loathsome blackmailer!"

"She's what? You astound me. Who – or, rather, whom – is she blackmailing?"

"H__, the poor angel. She's told him he's got to steal I__."

Name the blackmailer (G). What is she trying to blackmail H into stealing?

4. His eyes gleamed. If J__ had written a letter so indiscreet that he had to employ bravoes to recover it for him, it must be a letter worth acquiring.

For one reason and another, K__, though a many-sided man, had never yet made any experiments in the direction of blackmail. It was not that he had any moral objection to it, for there were very few things to which he had any moral objection. It was simply that he had never just happened to get around to it.