Big Business

The world of High Finance and Big Business has been known to intrude on the idyllic world of Drones and the Idle Rich. Can you identify the principals in the following examples?

1. Nevertheless, as he breakfasted on the morning of the fateful match, ___(A)____ was conscious of an unwonted nervousness. He was no weakling. In Wall Street his phlegm in moments of stress was a byword. On the famous occasion when the B. and G. crowd had attacked C. and D., and in order to keep control of L. and M. he had been compelled to buy so largely of S. and T., he had not turned a hair. And yet this morning, in endeavouring to prong up segments of bacon, he twice missed the plate altogether and on a third occasion speared himself in the cheek with his fork. The spectacle of ___(B)___, so calm, so competent, so supremely the perfect butler, unnerved him.

2. He was trying to square all this prosperity with what he knew of poor old ___(C)___. And one had to admit that it took a lot of squaring, for dear old ___(C)___, though a stout fellow and absolutely unrivalled as an imitator of bull-terriers and cats, was in many ways one of the most pronounced fatheads that ever pulled on a suit of gents' underwear.

"I suppose it seems rummy to you," I said, "but the fact is New York often bucks fellows up and makes them show a flash of speed that you wouldn't have imagined them capable of. It sort of develops them. Something in the air, don't you know. I imagine that ___(C)___ in the past, when you knew him, may have been something of a chump, but it's quite different now. Devilish efficient sort of bird, and looked on in commercial circles as quite the nib!"

"I am amazed! What is the nature of my nephew's business, Mr. ___(D)___?"

"Oh, just business, don't you know. The same sort of thing Rockefeller and all those coves do, you know."

3. "You listen to me, ___(E)___, we are ruined."

____(E)____ looked at her inquiringly.

"Ruined much?" he asked.

"Bed-rock," said his mother. "If we have sixty thousand dollars a year after this it's all we shall have."

A low howl escaped from the stricken old man on the sofa.

____(E)____ betrayed no emotion.

"Ah," he said, calmly. "How did it happen?"

'I've just had a cable from Chicago, from your grand-pop. He's been trying to corner wheat. He always was an impulsive old gazook."

"But surely," said ____(E)___, a dim recollection of something he had heard or read somewhere coming to him, "isn't cornering wheat a rather profitable process?"

"Sure," said his mother. "Sure it is. I guess dad's try at cornering wheat was about the most profitable thing that ever happened – to the other fellows. It seems like they got busy and clubbed fifty-seven varieties of Hades out of your old grand-pop. He's got to give up a lot of his expensive habits, and one of them is sending money to us. That's how it is."

"And on top of that, mind you," moaned Lord ___(F)____, "I lose my little veto. It's bitter – bitter."

(To clarify matters a little, the moaning Lord __(F)__ in the above excerpt and the howling "stricken old man on the sofa" are one and the same, and both are the father of __(E)__.)

4. "Golly, ___(G)___," she cried, amazed. "Up already?"

The poetic greeting plainly stung the young go-getter.

"Already? What do you mean, already? Why, over in Long Island City I leave the hay at seven sharp, and by nine-thirty we're generally half-way through our second conference."

"You don't attend conferences?"

"You betcher I attend conferences."

"Well, you could knock me down with a feather," said ___(H)___ composedly. "I always thought you were a sort of office boy."

"Me? Vice-president." (Ten pages later, as the conversation continued, __(G)__ was discussing his prospects of pulling off an important business deal.) "If I can swing it, it will be about the biggest thing we've ever pulled off."

"Your father-in-law will be pretty bucked. (...) I should think he would make you ... Is there anything higher than a vice-president?"

"Well, as a matter of fact," ___(G)___ confessed, in a burst of candour, "in most of these American concerns, as far as I've been able to make out, vice-president is about where you start. I fancy my guerdon ought to be something more on the lines of assistant sales manager."

Round 212 - 6 December 2004

Children should be Seen and not Heard

And in some cases it would be a mercy if they weren't seen either. In fact, the "chloroformed at birth" option favoured by Bertie Wooster begins to look quite attractive from time to time. This week we are omitting the childish prattling or misbehaviour and picking up the action where an exasperated elder has reached saturation point. Your task is to identify the member of the older generation and the object of his or her wrath.

1. In one second, without any previous training or upbringing, he had become the wettest man in Worcestershire. (...) Down below, things were hotting up nicely. Old Mr ___(A)___ may have been frail, but he undoubtedly had his moments. I have rarely seen a man of his years conduct himself with such a lissom abandon. There was a stick lying beside the chair, and with this in hand he went into action like a two-year-old. A moment later, he and ___(B)___ had passed out of the picture round the side of the house, ___(B)___ cutting out a rare pace but, judging from the sounds of anguish, not quite good enough to distance the field.

2. (Two irritating children are brought to heel within a few paragraphs of each other in this example:)

A deep sigh shook ___(C)___. I saw his eyes. They were alight with a hideous menace. Quickly and silently, like an African leopard stalking its prey, he advanced on the child. An instant later the stillness was disturbed by a series of reports like pistol shots. (...) ___(C)___ was himself again.

(That evening, in the home of C's brother-in-law and his wife:)

"That," she said, "will be all of that. Daddy isn't going to write any poem and, we shall want you out on the practice tee at seven sharp to-morrow, my lad."

(...) "But...." (...)

____(D)___ regarded him with quiet intentness.

"Does Mother's little chickabiddy want his nose pushed sideways?" she said. "Very well, then."

3. I, observing that one of my shoelaces had worked loose in the recent race for life, got out of my chair and started to tie it up.

And I was still in the stooping posture necessitated by this task, when (...) a jarring agony shot through my entire system and I whizzed forward and came up against the chesterfield. For an instant I had an idea that one of those earthquakes which are such a common feature of life in California must have broken loose. Then the hideous truth came home to me.

The woman I loved had kicked me in the pants.

4. Mr. ___(E)___ was a man of action.

"I'll teach you to feed my butler soap and put glue in your tutor's hat!" he said. And with this brief preamble embarked forthwith on the lesson. It was not a simple task to try to inject sweetness and light into a boy of ___(F)___'s hard-boiled temperament, but what one man armed with a springy whangee could do Mr ___(E)___ did. A stranger, passing ___(E)___ with a casual glance in the street, might have thought his physique too slight for any violent muscular effort. ___(F)___, after the first few moments, could have corrected this impression. But then he was getting first-hand information.

5. And, for a bonus point, can you identify the older brother who, driven beyond the limits of human endurance by his three-year-old sister's childish prattling, was heard to groan, "Oh, put a green baize cloth over that kid, somebody,"?

Round 213 - 16 December 2004

Spinach

With the approach of the festive s., we are inclined to talk turkey. And also, perhaps, Mignonnette de poulet petit duc, Neige aux perles des Alpes, and Timbale de ris de veau toulousaine. Lest we forget, however, the blessings of good plain English fare, your Quizmaster would like to focus this week on the sterling qualities of that wholesome king of vegetables: spinach. In the words of Uncle Woggly (alias Monty Bodkin) to his chicks: "Well, chickabiddies, how are you all? Minding what Nursie says and eating your spinach like good little men? That’s right. I know the stuff tastes like a motorman’s glove, but they say there’s iron in it, and that’s what puts hair on the chest."

1. "Having inspected the spots, the doc advised me to retire to the country."

"There are plenty of other places in the country to retire to."

"Ah," I said, "but my Aunt A___ is staying with some people here, and I knew it would make all the difference if I had her to exchange ideas with. Very entertaining woman, my Aunt A___. Never a dull moment when she’s around."

This, as I had foreseen, had him stymied. Something of his belligerence left him, and I could see that he was saying to himself, "Can it be that I have wronged B___?" Then he clouded over again.

"All this is very plausible," he said, "but it does not explain why you were slinking round C___ [name of a country house] this morning."

I was amazed. When I was a child, my nurse told me that there was One who was always besides me, spying out all my ways, and that if I refused to eat my spinach I would hear about it on Judgment Day, but it never occurred to me that she was referring to D___.

Who is the D, the alleged all-seeing arbiter of spinach consumption?

2. "E___," he said in a quiet, level voice, "you will eat your spinach."

"Eh? What? What’s that?"

"You will eat your nice spinach immediately, E___," said F___. And at the same time he narrowed his eyes and fixed them keenly on his host.

And suddenly the rich purple colour began to die out of the old man’s cheeks. Gradually his eyebrows crept back into their normal position. For a brief while he met F___’s eye; then he dropped his own and a weak smile came into his face.

"Well, well," he said, with a pathetic attempt at bluffness, as he reached over and grabbed the spoon. "What have we here? Spinach, eh? Capital, capital! Full of iron, I believe, and highly recommended by the medical profession."

And he dug in and scooped up a liberal portion.

Please name the guest who is teaching his host to take pot luck.

3. "That reminds me, old girl. Did you tell G___ about the police?"

G___ leaped a foot, and came down shaking in every limb.

"The police? What about the police?"

"Some blighter rang up from the local gendarmerie. The rozzers want to question you."

"What do you mean, question me?"

"Grill you," explained H___. "Give you the third degree. And there was another call before that. A mystery man who didn’t give his name. He and I___ kidded back and forth for a while."

"Yes, I talked to him," said I___. "He had a voice that sounded as if he ate spinach with sand in it. He was inquiring about the licence number of your car."

Please identify the mysterious spinach eater.

4. Until this moment, burglary was a form of gainful occupation of which J___ had had no experience. He had always made his money by brain work. But now the circumstances had turned him temporarily into a manual labourer, there was no diffidence in his soul, no hesitation in his bearing. If, as he stood at journey’s end, his heart beat a little faster, that was all.

Inside the room, his first act was to go to the door, open it and listen intently. Somewhere in the distance, a female voice was singing a hymn with a good deal of stomp in it, which would have indicated to the practised ear that K___’s cook had started to boil the spinach, but no other sound broke the silence.

What is the name of the establishment for whose denizens the musical cook is preparing one of her masterpieces?

Round 214 - 24 December 2004

Christmas Presents

In one of his uncollected articles, called "Christmas Presents" (alternative title: "Just What I Wanted"), Wodehouse wrote: "Our friends greet us in the street with ‘Well! Christmas will soon be here!’, registering the while a mental vow that, until they know what sort of a present we are going to give them, they are hanged if they are going to go above a dollar-ten for us." There is indeed a time for giving Christmas presents and a time for not giving Christmas presents, as is made abundantly clear in the following excerpts. You are asked to identify the respective givers, receivers, non-givers and/or non-receivers of yuletide gifts and/or non-gifts. Well, you see what I mean!

1. "I don’t like A___ marrying a curate."

"The very husband you should have wished her. The one thing a financier wants is a clergyman in the family. What happens next time the Senate Commission has you on the carpet and starts a probe? You say, ‘As proof of my respectability, gentlemen, I may mention that my daughter is married to a curate. You don’t find curates marrying into a man’s family if there’s anything fishy about him’, and they look silly and apologize. And there’s another thing."

"Eh?" said B___, who had been musing.

"I said there was another thing you ought to bear in mind. Have you considered what would have happened if A___ had married C___’s nephew? You would never have got C___ out of your hair. A Christmas present would have been expected yearly."

2. "Frightfully sorry," I said.

"Too late to be sorry now. A new pair of trousers ruined. It is doubtful if anything can remove the stain of tea from white flannel. Still, one must hope for the best."

Whether I was right or wrong at this point in patting him on the shoulder and saying "That’s the spirit!" I find it difficult to decide. Wrong, probably, for it did not seem to soothe. He gave me another of those looks and strode off, smelling strongly of tea.

"Shall I tell you something, D___?" said E___, following him with a thoughtful eye. "That walking tour F___ was going to invite you to take with him is off. You will get no Christmas present from him this year, and don’t expect him to come and tuck you up in bed tonight."

3. Twenty miles away, in a lane off the London road, G___ had stopped the two-seater, and was telling her H___ to fetch out the l’il old jar so that she might take a gander at its contents before proceeding to the metropolis.

She said she felt like a child about to open its Christmas stocking.

4. "How many would you like?"

"How many what?"

"Richly bound encyclopaedias of Sport."

"Oh yes, yes, yes," said I___, enlightened. "Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure. I didn’t get you for a moment. About how many would you suggest? Fifty?"

J___ shook his head again – petulantly, it seemed to I___. The mosquito had returned.

"Well, naturally," proceeded I___, "when I said fifty, I meant a hundred. I think that’s a nice round number."

"Very nice," agreed J___. "Or would you care for a gross?"

"A gross might be better."

"You can give them to your friends."

"That’s right. On their birthdays."

"Or at Christmas."

"Of course. So difficult to think of a suitable Christmas present."

Round 215 - 4 January 2005

Da Vinci Probe

The main task of the Wodehousian scholar of the 21st century will undoubtedly be to detect, at last, the secrets which the Master has so cunningly concealed in his works. If you ask me whether some day researchers will reveal the presence of a coded message leading to the discovery of – for instance – a most compromising manuscript in – let’s say – a ruined, Gothic vaulted pig-sty, I reply: "Probably, very probably." And the reason your quizmaster is so dashed positive about this, is the highly suspicious omnipresence, in the canon, of Da Vinci’s masterpiece. In this week’s quest, can you identify the following Mona Lisa lookalikes?

1. The sound of soft and wistful music percolating through the drawing-room door as I approached did nothing to brighten the general outlook; and when I went in and saw A___ seated at the piano, drooping on her stem a goodish deal, the sight nearly caused me to turn and leg it. However, I fought down the impulse and started things off with a tentative "What ho."

The observation elicited no immediate response. She had risen, and for perhaps half a minute stood staring at me in a sad sort of way, like the Mona Lisa on one of the mornings when the sorrows of the world had been coming over the plate a bit too fast for her.

2. "Odd," he said. "A curious smile, yours, Mr B___. It reminds me a little of the Mona Lisa’s. It has the same underlying note of the sardonic and the sinister. It virtually amounts to a leer. Somehow it seems to convey the suggestion that you know all. Fortunately, my own life is an open book, for all to read, and so I was not discommoded. But I think it would be better if, for the present, you endeavoured not to smile at invalids or nervous persons. Good morning, Mr. B___. That will be five guineas, precisely."

3. A cry like that of a tiger leaping on its prey interrupted him. Through the open door C___ had espied a lissom form crossing the hall. He was outside in a flash, confronting it.

"You there! You bloodstained D___!"

"Oh, hullo."

C___, as his opening words had perhaps sufficiently indicated, had not come for any mere exchange of courtesies.

"Never mind the ‘Oh, hullo.’ I want that manuscript of mine, young D___, and I want it at once, so make it slippy, you sheep-faced young exile from Hell. If it’s on your person, disgorge it. If it’s in your suitcase, unpack it. And E___ here and I will be standing over you while you do it."

There was an infinite sadness in D___’s gaze. He looked like a male Mona Lisa.

4. Chafing, he took out a cigarette and lit it.

"Beautiful!" said G___.

"Eh?"

"Beautiful!" repeated G___, nodding his head in a sort of ecstasy, as if someone had shown him the Mona Lisa. "The way you lit that cigarette. Graceful ... Easy ... Deb-whatever-the-word-is."

Round 216 - 12 January 2005

Minor Pigs

On the loftiest throne of the Wodehousian animal kingdom sits the Pig Supreme, Empress of Blandings. But she is not the only representative of the family Suidae in the canon. A host of minor pigs revolve around her, like porcine planets round an imperial sun, and basking in her glory ...

1. It suddenly struck A___ as a little odd that with July only half over this child should be at large. The summer holidays, as he remembered it, always used to start round about the first of August.

"Why aren’t you at school now?"

"I was bunked last month."

"Really?" said A___, interested. "They gave you the push, did they? What for?"

"Shooting pigs."

"Shooting pigs?"

"With a bow and arrow. One pig, that is to say. B___. He belonged to C___, the headmistress."

What is the name of the pig?

2. To me, the thing was one of the most poignant tragedies that had ever been brought to my attention, and I have no doubt that I should have continued to brood over it for quite a time, had my thoughts not been diverted by the sudden necessity of zigzagging sharply in order to avoid a pig in the fairway.

For a moment it looked like being real Nicholls-and-Jackson stuff, but, fortunately, a quick zig on my part coinciding with an adroit zag on the part of the pig, enabled me to win through, and I continued to ride safe, but with the heart fluttering like a captive bird.

Who is the rider and where is he going?

3. It was at this moment (...) that the door opened again and D___ pottered in, looking so like a white rabbit that the first impulse of any lover of animals would have been to offer her a lettuce.

"E___, dear", she said, "have you seen my pig?"

For the past half-hour E___ had been under a considerable strain, and though relief at the success of his half-brother-in-law’s intervention had lessened this, he was still feeling its effects. This sudden introduction of the pig motif seemed to take him into a nightmare world where nothing made sense, and for a moment everything went blank. Swaying a little on his base, he said in a low whisper:

"Your pig?"

"The little gold pig from my charm bracelet. It has dropped off, and I can’t find it anywhere."

Who is the pig-wearing rabbit in human form?

4. In the heart of the city of London’s bustle and din, some fifty yards to the east of Leadenhall Market, there stands a small and dingy place of refreshment bearing over its door the name of F___. In addition to alluring the public with a rich smell of mixed foods, the restaurant keeps permanently in its window a dish containing a saintly looking pig’s head flanked by two tomatoes and a discouraged lettuce. There are also cakes of dubious aspect scattered here and there. Through the glass you can see sad-eyed members of the Borgia family in stained dress suits busily engaged in keeping up the ancient traditions of the clan.

In the narrow doorway of the establishment (...) G___ was standing with his young friend H___. They were looking up and down the street with an air of expectancy.

"You’re sure this is the right place?" asked H___ in a voice of melancholy. The Gioconda smile of that placid pig had begun to weigh upon his spirits.

"It’s what she said in her telegram – F___’s in Leadenhall Street."

"Very mysterious, the whole thing," said H___, frowning at the pig.

What is the name of the establishment trying to allure the public with porcine Mona Lisa lookalikes?

Round 217 - 20 January 2005

Bring on the Fiends

Wodehouse's stories feature many references to fiends, both faceless and faced. Identify the five following (alleged) fiends.

1. He shook a menacing finger at the baronet. "You little thought, A__, when you embarked on this dastardly scheme, that B__ was watching your every move. I guessed your plans from the start. And now is the moment when I checkmate them. Give me that key, you Fiend."

"ffiend," corrected A__ automatically.

2. "I was seated in my window a few minutes ago, drafting out some notes for my forthcoming speech at the annual dinner of Our Dumb Chums' League, of which I am perpetual vice-president, when, to my horror, I observed a fiend torturing a helpless bird. For a while I gazed in appalled stupefaction, while my blood ran cold."

"Hot, you said."

"First hot, then cold. I seethed with indignation at this fiend."

"I don't blame you," said B__. "If there's one type of chap I bar, it's a fiend. Who was the fellow?"

"B__," said C__, pointing a finger that looked like a plantain or some unusually enlarged banana, "thou art the man!"

3. Deprived of their society, D__ filled in with a little soliloquizing. And then suddenly it was as if he had awakened from a trance. His shoulders sagged. The putter slipped from his grasp.

He had seen E__.

"Oh, hullo," he said dully. "You back?"

"I have been here some time," she said.

He nodded sombrely.

"Were you listening, by any chance?"

"I was."

"Then you realize now the sort of man I am. A... what's the expression?"

"Fiend in human shape?"

"That's right. Fiend in human shape."

"Just the kind of fiend I like," said E__.

4. "Would you be able to identify the scoundrel?"

"Fiend," corrected Mr F__, who liked to get these things right. "Must have been that fiend we've been reading about in the papers."

"Would you be able to identify this fiend?"

"Oh, absolutely. Short, slight chap with delicate, handsome features."

Miss F__ snorted.

"He was nothing of the kind. He was enormous and looked like a gorilla." ...

(Later in the chapter, the narrator comes face to face with the fiend.)

"Believe it or not, it had absolutely slipped my mind that the one person I've always wanted to poke in the snoot was G__."

I reeled again. ...

"No, no!"

"Eh?"

"You wouldn't do that?"

"I certainly would."

"Are you a fiend?"

"You betcher I'm a fiend. See daily press."

5. From out of the bushes on the other side of the drive a bearded face was protruding, its eyes glaring into hers.

"Eek!" she cried, recoiling.

It would have pained H__, the kindliest and most chivalrous of men, could he have read the News of the World headlines which were racing through her mind – FIEND DISMEMBERS BEAUTIFUL GIRL the mildest of them. ...

He wished he had some means of ascertaining this girl's name, for there was something a little abrupt in just saying "Hi!" But there seemed no other way of embarking on the conversation, so he said it again, this time emerging from the bushes and advancing towards her.

It was most unfortunate that in doing so he should have caught his foot in an unseen root, for this caused him to come out at a staggering run, clutching the air with waving hands, the last thing calculated to restore I__'s already shaken morale. If he had practised for weeks, he could not have given a more realistic and convincing impersonation of a Fiend starting out to dismember a beautiful girl.

Round 218 - 28 January 2005

Fires

Name the emulators of Mordred Mulliner who set the following four fires.

1. "Look out what you're doing with that lamp."

"Yes, sir."

"You'll upset it."

"Yes, sir."

"Oy!"

"Yes, sir?"

"You'll set the house on fire!"

"Yes, sir." ...

I don't suppose there is anything that makes much better burning than one of these old country cottages. You just put a match to them – or upset a lamp in the hall, as the case may be – and up they go. It couldn't have been more than half a minute before a merry crackling came to my ears and a bit of the floor over in the corner suddenly burst into a cheerful flame.

2. "This calls for thought," he said. "We've sold that table."

"Yes."

"Twice."

"Yes."

"And got the money for it."

"Yes."

"And it's a fake."

"Yes." ...

"We'd better go to the pub and talk it over."

"Yes."

"You be walking on. There's something I want to attend to in the kitchen. By the way, got any matches? I've used all mine."

I gave him a box and strolled on, deep in thought, and presently he joined me, seeming deep in thought, too. We sat on a stile, both of us plunged in meditation, and then he suddenly uttered an exclamation.

"What a lovely sunset," he said, "and how peculiar that the sun's setting in the east. I've never known it to do that before. Why, strike me pink, I believe the cottage is on fire."

And, A__, he was perfectly accurate. It was.

3. ... I had torn off my coat and flung it from me and was preparing to plunge into the burning building, though still feeling that it was a bit thick having to get myself all charred up to gratify a kid who would be far better cooked to a cinder, when he emerged. His face was black, and he hadn't any eyebrows, but in other respects appeared reasonably bobbish. Indeed, he seemed entertained rather than alarmed by what had occurred.

"Coo!" he said, in a pleased sort of voice. "Bit of a bust up, wasn't it?"

4. "He was rather vexed about it. So was Miss B__. Especially as I was supposed to be in disgrace at the time, because I had set the dormitory on fire the night before."

C__ blinked a bit.

"You set the dormitory on fire?"

"Yes."

"Any special reason, or just a passing whim?"

"I was playing Florence Nightingale."

"Florence Nightingale?"

"The Lady with the Lamp. I dropped the lamp,"

"Tell me," said C__. "This Miss B__ of yours. What colour is her hair?"

"Grey."

"I thought as much."

Extra credit: Name the Wodehouse hero who sets the heroine's hat on fire (while she's wearing it).

Round 219 - 5 February 2005

Umbrellas

"What bad luck, it's
Coming down in buckets;
Have you an umbrella handy?"

– PG Wodehouse, "Till the Clouds Roll By"

In Wodehouse, umbrellas have many uses: getting the girl, getting a job, golf practice, wiping a bead of persp. from the brow (with the ferrule), and (with a parasol, to be exact) the pursuit of rats. A few of these are illustrated below (uses, not rats). First prize will be one year's membership in the Marquis de Maufringneuse et Valerie-Moberanne's Umbrella Club.

1. I charged round the table in the direction of the door. Unfortunately, A__ had just decided to edge in that direction himself, with the result that we collided in the doorway with a good deal of force, and staggered out into the hall together. He came smartly out of the clinch and grabbed an umbrella from the rack.

"Stand back!" he shouted, waving it over his head. "Stand back, sir! I am armed!"

Identify the chap (or, as the poet Berlin puts it, the fella) with the umbrella.

2. "Where's my umbrella?" demanded the pink one. "The cloakroom waiter says you took my umbrella. I mean, a joke's a joke, but that was a dashed good umbrella."

"It was, indeed," B__ agreed cordially. "It may be of interest to you to know that I selected it as the only possible one from among a number of competitors. I fear this club is becoming very mixed, C__. You with your pure mind would hardly believe the rottenness of some of the umbrellas I inspected in the cloak-room."

"Where is it?"

"The cloak-room? You turn to the left as you go in at the main entrance and ..."

"My umbrella, dash it! Where's my umbrella?"

Who is C, and where is his umbrella?

3. He paused, and eyed me narrowly. "Did you say that I am supposed to strike my colleague with an umbrella?"

"That's right."

"And if I understood D__ correctly, the other performer in this extraordinary production is the local policeman?"

"That's right."

"The whole thing is impossible and utterly out of the question," said E__ vehemently. "Have you any idea what happens when you hit a policeman with an umbrella?"

Who is E__, and how does he know what happens when you hit a p. with a u.?

4. F__ walked up the stairs and was shown into the room where G__, when his father's eye was upon him, gave his daily imitation of a young man labouring with diligence and enthusiasm at the law. His father being at the moment out at lunch, the junior partner was practising putts with an umbrella and a ball of paper.

Who is G?

5. "What makes you think he has reformed?"

"Of course he has reformed. Look at him. Well-groomed, well-dressed, a decent member of Society. What his present walk in life is, I do not know, but it is perfectly obvious that he is no longer stealing bags. What are you doing now, young man?"

"Stealing umbrellas, apparently," said H__. "I notice he's got yours."

And I was on the point of denying the accusation hotly – I had, indeed, already opened my lips to do so – when there suddenly struck me like a blow on the upper maxillary from a sock stuffed with wet sand the realization that there was a lot in it.

I mean to say, I remembered now that I had come out without my umbrella, and yet here I was, beyond any question of doubt, umbrellaed to the gills.

Whose umbrella has the narrator taken?

Extra Credit: For full extra credit, identify both J and the story from which this passage comes.

I had just finished a hurried breakfast and was looking about for the umbrella which I kept for an occasion like this – nothing makes a better impression than a tightly rolled umbrella – when I__, my ex-butler landlord, accosted me in his majestic way.

"Good morning, sir. Mr. J__ called shortly after you had left last night ... I gave him the umbrella."

"Eh?"

"Your umbrella, sir. Mr. J__ informed me that he wished to borrow it."

Round 220 - 14 February 2005

Third Annual Valentine's Day Quiz

As we all know, the conventional way for a man to propose is to grab the woman he loves like a sack of coal, waggle her about a bit, and shower burning kisses on her upturned face. (There seems to be a double standard; Madeline Bassett does not try this on Bertie Wooster.) But a few Wodehouse males use less orthodox methods, with varying degrees of success. Name the proposers and the women to whom they propose.

1. "Well, how did it happen?"

"It sort of happened all of a sudden. I was feeling miserable and very angry with you and ... and all that. And I met A__ and he took me for a stroll and we went down by the lake and started throwing little bits of stick at the swans, and suddenly A__ sort of grunted and said 'I say!' and I said 'Hullo?' and he said 'Will you marry me?' and I said 'All right,' and he said 'I ought to warn you, I despise all women,' and I said 'And I loathe all men,' and he said 'Right-ho, I think we shall be very happy.'"

2. It had not occurred to B__ at first that there could be any further disadvantage attached to his position other than the obvious drawbacks which had already come to his notice. He was now to perceive that he had been mistaken. A voice was speaking in the room he had left, a plainly audible voice, deep and throaty; and within a minute B__ had become aware that he was to suffer the additional discomfort of being obliged to listen to a fellow man – one could call C__ that by stretching the facts a little – proposing marriage. The gruesomeness of the situation intensified. Of all moments when a man – and justice compelled B__ to admit that C__ was technically human – of all moments when a man may by all the laws of decency demand to be alone without an audience of his own sex, the chiefest is the moment when he is asking a girl to marry him. B__'s was a sensitive nature, and he writhed at the thought of playing the eavesdropper at such a time.

He looked frantically about him for a means of escape. C__ had now reached the stage of saying at great length that he was not worthy of D__. He said it over and over again in different ways. B__ was in hearty agreement with him, but he did not want to hear it.

3. "I oughtn't to have let myself be carried away like that, but I was sort of leading up to ask you if you'd marry me."

"What!"

"Marry. M for measles."

E__ seated herself on the desk, and eyed him with a bright interest. Hers had been a sheltered life, and this was the first time she had encountered anything like the Last of the F__s.

"Well!" she said.

"I know, I know. Of course, you'll want to think it over. I hadn't meant to spring it on you quite so soon."

"It sort of slipped out?"

"That's right. I fell in love with you at first sight, don't you know, and all that sort of rot, but I had rather intended to hush it up till a more suitable moment."

"Have you often fallen in love at first sight?"

4. She had never pretended to herself that she loved G__ in the sense in which the word is used in books. She liked him, and she liked the idea of being connected with the Peerage, and her father liked the idea, and she liked her father, and the combination of these likings had caused her to reply "Yes," when, last autumn, G__, swelling himself out like an embarrassed frog and gulping, had uttered that memorable speech, beginning, "I say, you know, it's like this, don't you know," and ending, "What I mean is, will you marry me, what?"

5. H_ could endure it no longer.

"Here, give me that telephone."

"Oh, yerss, I was forgetting. Don't ring off, I__. Here's someone wants to talk to yer."

H__ took the instrument, and J__ whispered a word of warning.

"Pick yer words carefully, my boy, don't rush her."

"I won't. I__? H__ speaking. Look, I__, this is important. Will you marry me?"