Eggs mashed up in glasses, tea bags etc

Wodehouse himself was most enthusiastic about American food, becoming lyrical on the subjects of strawberry shortcake and soft-shell crabs. He reminisced in America, I Like You about his first New York trip:

"And the food! It is odd, considering how intensely spiritual I am, that that was about all I could talk about when I got back to London."

His characters, in sharp contradistinction, when they mention foods of the New World, generally view them with suspicion and concern.

1. "And __A__ has been asking for waffles again."

"Oh, dash his waffles! What the dickens are these waffles he's always whining about?"

"They appear to be an American breakfast food."

"Well, he's not in America now."

"But he wants his waffles."

___B__ , his brow furrowed, wrestled with this problem.

"Would my wife know how to make the damned things?"

"I have consulted Lady __C__, Sir __B__, and she informs me that she can make a substance called fudge, but not waffles."

2. "Well, _E__, what did you think of America?"

"Extraordinary country. You know it well, don't you?"

"Oh, yes, I was always popping in and out of it in the old days. You found it extraordinary, you say?"

"Very. Those tea bags."

"I beg your pardon?"

"They serve your tea in little bags."

"So they do. I remember."

"And when you ask for a boiled egg, they bring it to you mashed up in a glass."

"You don't like it that way?"

"No, I don't."

"Then the smart thing to do is not to ask for boiled egg."

"True," said __E__ , who had not thought of that.

***

A few pages later "E" observes that they eat what food with pie in America (a thing he would not care to do himself)?

3. "That fellow _F_, by the way, was the head of a company that manufactures potato chips, those little curly things you eat at cocktail parties. I met him at a cocktail party __G__ took me to, and we got into conversation and he happened to mention that his firm had made the very potato chips we were eating. I said it was a small world, and he agreed. 'Sure,' he said. 'It's a very small world, no argument about that,' and we had some more potato chips. He said that the great thing about being in the potato chip business was that nobody could eat just one potato chip, which of course was very good for the sales. What he meant was that once you've started you haven't the strength of mind to stop; you've got to go on, first one potato chip, then another potato chip, then ..."

"__E__," said __H__ , "stop babbling!"

4. The administration of Mickey Finns is also a quaint American custom. Who suffered from it here?

"I asked her to dinner and didn't show up. Naturally this would have annoyed her, but you'd think she would let me explain. But she won't."

"Your explanation being –?"

"That just as I was starting out for the restaurant somebody gave me a Mickey Finn."

"Somebody what?"

"Gave me a Mickey Finn. You know what a Mickey Finn is."

A rather careworn look had come into ___J___'s face. It was plain he was having difficulty in becoming equal to the intellectual pressure of the conversation."

Two opportunities for bonus points

Bonus 1. Peanut Butter

"It is much eaten in America. I was told that you put jam on it. If you like jam, of course. And after they have finished eating peanut butter they go out and contact people and have conferences."

Whose description of American customs is this?

Bonus 2. Who recognizes the dangers of the American habit of dancing during meals (which, along with the vast supplies of pie absorbed in youth, contributes to American supremacy in dyspepsia) but succumbs to temptation and does dance, with momentous consequences?

Round 272 - 13 May 2006

Kozy Kots and Wee Holmes

There is a slightly different format this week. In Part I, please identify the apparently haunted cottages, villas and bungalows described. Part II has nothing to do with dwellings, haunted or otherwise.

Part I

1. His new home, when he beheld it at about twenty minutes past nine, came at first glance as a disappointment. True, Mr _A__ had spoken of it throughout as a villa and the name __B__ should have should have prepared him, but subconsciously _C__ had been picturing something with a thatched roof and honeysuckle and old Mister Moon climbing up over the trees, and it was disconcerting to find a red brick building which might have been transferred from the suburbs of London. __D__ itself was old and picturesque, but, as in other country towns, the speculative builder had had his way on the outskirts.

...

The bedroom was all right. Quite a good bedroom, the bed springy to the touch. His spirits rose. A man, he felt, could be very happy and get through a lot of work in a place like this ...

... Its one small defect was that it appeared to be haunted.

From time to time, as he moved about his new home, __C__ had been aware of curious noises, evidently supernatural. If asked by the Committee of the Society of Psychical Research to describe these noises, he would have been rather at a loss. Well, sort of grunting noises, he would have told them.

Grunting?

Yes.

When you say grunting, do you mean grunting?

2. __E___ proved to be a decentish little shack, situated in agreeable surroundings. A bit Ye Olde, but otherwise all right. It had a thatched roof and a lot of those windows with small leaded panes, and there was a rockery in the front garden. It looked, in short, as I subsequently learned was the case, as if it had formerly been inhabited by an elderly female of good family who kept cats.

I had walked in and deposited the small suitcase in the hall, when, as I stood gazing about me and inhaling the fug which always seems to linger about these antique interiors, I became aware that there was more in this joint than met the eye. In a word, I suddenly found myself speculating on the possibility of it not only being fuggy, but haunted.

What started this train of thought was the fact that odd noises were in progress somewhere near at hand, here a bang and there a crash, suggesting the presence of a poltergeist or what not.

Part II

In the following lists,all persons share a notable characteristic: personal, physical or biographical. For example, given:

Lord Worpleson; Gussie Fink-Nottle; Bertie Wooster; Lord "Chuffy" Chuffnell; Lord Rowcester/Towcester

it is of course obvious that each of these individuals is known to have been or pretended to be an employer of Jeeves.

There may be more than one good answer for some of these. Creativity is encouraged.

3. Bingo's aunt's butler; Augustus Keggs' brother-in-law; Uncle George's barmaid; an outsider who won the Grand National

4. Jane (Imogen) Abbott's mother; Joan Valentine; Monty Bodkin's aunt; Sue Brown's mother; Pauline, Countess of Wetherby

5. Stephanie (Stiffy) Byng; Bertie's Aunt Agatha; T.G. Jellicoe

Bonus Point for the numerically inclined

Sharpen a wit or two (or a pencil) or start your calculator and compute the following:

Take the number of calories required by a pig daily to maintain mid-season form, divide by the number of sheep counted by William Egerton Osingham Belfry, ninth Earl of Towcester/Rowcester. Then divide your result by the number of weeks the nightclub The HotSpot survived.

Is your answer closest to:

a) the number of dinner jackets Bertie had with him in New York the time he heard Jimmy Mundy preach

b) the number of sisters Lord Emsworth and Gally have

c) the number of cats found in Bertie's bedroom or

d) the distance in miles from London to Brinkley?

Round 273 - 21 May 2006

Gramophones

In this era of iPods and MP3s, let us indulge in a spot of nostalgia, at 33 1/3, 45 or even – as in a South-American republic – 78 revolutions per minute.

1. From somewhere near at hand music made itself heard. The servants' hall, its day's labours ended, was refreshing itself with the housekeeper's gramophone. To A___ the strains were merely an additional annoyance. He was not fond of music. It reminded him of his younger son B___, a flat but persevering songster both in and out of the bath. [...]

"WHO stole my heart away?" howled the gramophone. "WHO – ?"

2. "How well I remember those days! C___ dances so wonderfully," she added, addressing D___ and imparting to him a piece of first-hand information which, of course, he would have been sorry to have missed. "I love dancing. The one unpunished rapture left on earth."

"What ho!" said C___, concurring. "The old Charleston ... do you remember it?"

"You bet I do."

"Put a Charleston record on the gramophone, E___."

"Very good, m'lord."

3. "He said it was an experiment he had often wanted to try, because he thought so many lunchers get into a rut. They began with coffee and cigars and worked back through a glass of port, chocolate soufflé and breaded veal cutlet with potatoes and asparagus, finishing up with aperitifs and Martini cocktails. F___ said it was quite an experience. And after lunch, when he tried to interview the old bird – sorry, your late brother – all the old loony – your late brother, I mean – would do was play records on the gramophone and tell F___ to shut up when he tried to say anything. He just sat there sipping his third cocktail and tucking into the potted shrimps and playing records."

4. G___ went so far as to pat his nephew affectionately on the back, a great improvement on prodding him in the ribs. [...]

"I still think you ought to get a job and buckle down to earning your living, but nobody can say you aren't a very present help in time of trouble. There's just one thing," said G___, as they walked to the house. "I shall have to let H___ in on this. She was with me when the broker's man presented his credentials. Will you come along?"

"No, I think I'll have a swim in the lake."

"Yes, do," said G___. "Just the thing in this weather."

He found H___ in the drawing room putting records on the gramophone, and took her immediately into his confidence.

Extra credit: who caused quite a stir by turning on a gramophone in the middle of the night?

Extra extra credit: who bought sixteen gramophone records on credit?

Round 274 - 29 May 2006

Oranges

This week's round cannot be better introduced than by quoting the dashed clever lyrics of that number you may have seen at the Palace recently:

"Oh, won't you something something oranges,
My something oranges,
My something oranges;
Oh, won't you something something something I forget,
Something something something tumty tumty yet:
Oh –

or words to that effect." (cf The Inimitable Jeeves, ch. 15]

1. I had high hopes that she would be able to swing the deal. Though differing from my Aunt A___ in almost every possible respect, B___ has this in common with that outstanding scourge: she is authoritative. When she wants you to do a thing, you find yourself doing it. This has been so from her earliest years. I remember her on one occasion at our mutual dancing class handing me an antique orange, a blue and yellow mass of pips and mildew, and bidding me bung it at our instructress, who had incurred her displeasure for some reason which has escaped my recollection. And I did it without a murmur, though knowing full well how bitter the reckoning would be.

2. "It must be wonderful in Hollywood," he said. "All those oranges and movie stars."

With the best intentions he appeared to have chosen the wrong subject for his eulogy. The face of the inebriated friend of C___ darkened, and his mouth twisted as if he had bitten into a bad oyster. His comment on D___'s words could only have been called curt.

"To hell with movie stars!"

"Quite," said D___ hastily. "Quite, quite."

"The scum of the earth."

"You're probably right."

"I'm always right."

"But the oranges. You like those?"

"To hell with them, too. No time to talk about oranges now. I've got to knock this guy's block off."

3. "On rising," he told E___, "take the juice of an orange. For luncheon, the juice of an orange. And for dinner the juice" – he paused a moment before springing the big surprise – "of an orange. For the rest, I am not an advocate of nourishment between meals, but I am inclined to think that, should you become faint during the day - or possibly the night – there will be no harm in your taking ... well, yes, I really see no reason why you should not take the juice of – let us say – an orange."

4. "F___!" said G___.

"G___!" said F___.

"You darling," said G___ ; "I love you, I love you, I ..."

"Oranges and chawklits," said a dispassionate voice at his elbow. "Oranges, sengwidges and chawklits."

With prismatic dreams of murder filling his mind, G___ turned. [...] "I don't want any oranges," he said tensely. [...]

G___ grasped F___'s arm and hurried her along the platform.

5. The gentleman referred to, who sat at the speaker's end of the table, acknowledged the tribute with a brief nod of the head. It was a nod of condescension; the nod of one who, conscious of being hedged about by social inferiors, nevertheless does his best to be not unkindly. And H___, seeing it, debated in her mind for an instant the advisability of throwing an orange at her brother. There was one lying ready to her hand, and his glistening shirt-front offered an admirable mark; but she restrained herself. After all, if a hostess yields to her primitive impulses, what happens? Chaos.

Round 275 - 6 June 2006

Barmaids

"With the possible exception of Mrs Emily Post, a few of the haughtier Duchesses and the late mother of the Gracchi, the British barmaid, trained from earliest years to behave with queenly dignity under the most testing conditions, stands alone in the matter of poise" (Pigs Have Wings, ch. 5). This week's quiz round is a tribute to that noble institution.

1. "Nice day," said A___ as she filled the order, for she was a capital conversationalist. A barmaid has to be as quick as lightning with these good things. They promote a friendly atmosphere and stimulate trade.

"Beautiful," said B___ with equal cordiality. "Hullo, has somebody been giving you a watch? Your birthday is it, or something?"

A___ giggled. A most musical sound, B___ thought it. In the mood he was in he would have been equally appreciative of a sqeaking slate pencil.

"It's Old Fatty's. He won it in the darts tournament."

"Old Fatty? You mean the gentleman I was dancing the rumba with just now?"

"My Uncle George always calls him Old Fatty. Uncle George is terribly funny."

2. The saloon-bar of the C___ at the moment of D___'s entry was unoccupied save by a robust lady in black satin with the sunlight, or something similar, in her hair, and a large brooch athwart her bosom with the word "Baby" written across it in silver letters. She stood behind the counter, waiting, like some St Bernard dog in an Alpine pass, to give aid and comfort to the thirsty. [...]

"Why ever do you wear that beard?" she asked.

"It's the only one I've got," said D___. [...]

"Well, do you know what I'd have done, if you had come in here a few years ago when everybody was doing it?"

"What?"

"I'd have said 'Beaver' and gone like this."

She reached out and gave the beard a hearty tweak. As she did so she chuckled merrily.

It was the last chuckle she was to utter for days and days.

3. It was plainly a wedding group. Beside a chair, dressed in billowy white, stood a buxom girl with hair like a bird's nest and "barmaid" written all over her. In her left hand she held a bouquet of lilies of the valley, her right she rested lovingly on the shoulder of the man who was sitting in the chair.

The first thing the beholder noticed about this man was his size. E___ was no pigmy, but beside the bridegroom in this photograph he would have seemed one. The fellow bestrode the narrow chair like a colossus. Impressed by his bulk and turning to a closer scrutiny, the eye was then arrested by his face, which was even more formidable. He had a broken nose, his jaw was the jaw of the star of a Western B-picture registering Determination, and beneath that wedding frock coat one could discern the rippling muscles.

4. "I don't know what the dickens you're talking about," he said, "but bring your drink up to my room and we'll go into the matter there. We cannot bandy a woman's name in a saloon bar." [...]

So they went upstairs, and F___ shut the door.

"Now then," he said. "What's all this drivel?"

"I've told you."

"Tell me again."

"I will."

"Right ho. One moment."

F___ went to the door and opened it sharply. There came the unmistakable sound of a barmaid falling downstairs.

5. The Summer Sunday was drawing to a close. Twilight had fallen on the little garden of the G___, and the air was fragrant with the sweet scent of jasmine and tobacco plant. Stars were peeping out. Blackbirds sang drowsily in the shrubberies. Bats wheeled through the shadows, and a gentle breeze played fitfully among the hollyhocks. It was, in short, as a customer who had looked in for a gin and tonic rather happily put it, a nice evening.

Nevertheless, to H___ and the group assembled in the bar parlour of the inn there was a sense of something missing. It was due to the fact that I___, the efficient barmaid, was absent. Some forty minutes had elapsed before she arrived and took over from the pot-boy. When she did so, the quiet splendour of her custome and the devout manner in which she pulled the beer-handle told their own story.

Round 276 - 14 June 2006

Germany

As the media – at least here in Europe – are making it impossible to escape the fever surrounding the World Cup, we may as well organise an all-German quiz this week!

1. "There, there!" he said, not quite feeling up to risking the "little woman". "It's all right."

"But it tut-tut-tut ..."

"It what?" said A___ puzzled.

"It tut-tut-tut-tisn't. There's a man in there!"

"A man?"

"Yes. I didn't know there was anyone there, and it was pitch dark and I heard something move and I said "Who's that?" and then he suddenly spoke to me in German."

"In German?"

"Yes."

A___ released her gently. His face was determined.

"I'm going in to have a look."

"A___! Stop! You'll be killed."

She stood there, rigid. The rain lashed about her, but she did not heed. The lightning gleamed. She paid it no attention.

2. When they arrived on the scene of the hostilities, the young man had just possessed himself of the walking-stick, and was deep in a complex argument with the head-waiter on the ethics of the matter. The head-waiter, a stout impassive German, had taken his stand on a point of etiquette. "Id is," he said, "to bring gats into der grill-room vorbidden. No gendleman would gats into der grill-room bring. Der gendleman –"

The young man meanwhile was making enticing sounds, to which the cat was maintaining an attitude of reserved hostility. He turned furiously on the head-waiter.

"For goodness' sake," he cried, "can't you see the poor brute's scared stiff? Why don't you clear your gang of German comedians away, and give her a chance to come down?"

"Der gendleman –" argued the head-waiter.

B___ stepped forward and touched him on the arm. [...]

"These petty matters of etiquette are not for his Grace – but, hush, he wishes to preserve his incognito."

3. The question, however, that exercised C___ a bit at this juncture was how was this stripping to be done. If it was the man's intention to follow hard on the animal's heels till closing time, it was difficult to see how he was to be de-Peked without detection.

But his luck was in. D___ had apparently been entertaining himself with a spot of music on the radio, for when he emerged it was playing a gay rumba. And now, as radios do, it suddenly broke off in the middle, gave a sort of squawk and began to talk German. And D___ turned back to fiddle with it.

It gave C___ just the time he needed.

4. E___ had retired to his room early that night. But he had not gone to bed. To one in his state of mental upheaval sleep was out of the question. At the advanced hour when F___ was setting out with his little bag of tools, he was still in a chair at his open window, fully clothed, gazing over the moonlit grounds with a pipe between his teeth and in his eye that strange goofy gleam which had been its predominant expression ever since G___ had terminated the engagement.

In that world-famous brochure of his, to which we have already referred, H___ of Berlin writes as follows:

"Having round the corner nipped and the good, stiff drink taken," says H___ – he is still on the theme of the young man disappointed in love – "the subject will now all food-nourishment refuse and in 87.06 per cent of cases will for a long and muscle-exercising walk along the high road or across country at a considerable rate of speed and in much soul-agitation go."

How true this is. It was what we saw happen in the case of I___, and it had happened with E___.

Extra credit: What is the name of the German who had the doubtful honour of bumping into a genuine Peer of the Realm? A graceful tip from your quizmaster: the encounter took place on neutral territory, viz. the United States of America.

Round 277 - 22 June 2006

The Brewer’s Art

Green Swizzles, Lightning Whizzers, May Queens and laced orange juice may take pride of place in Plum’s pantheon of potent potables but the humble pint of ale is not to be sneered at, as the following gentlemen will attest. Can you identify them and provide the usual sources?

1. ___(A)___ had come to the private bar in search of relief for his bruised soul, and he could have made no wiser move. Nothing can ever render the shattering of his hopes and the bringing of his dream castles to ruin about his ears really agreeable to a young man, but the beer purveyed by ___(B)___, proprietor of the ___(name of pub)___ unquestionably does its best. The __(B)__ home-brewed is a liquid Pollyanna, for ever pointing out the bright side and indicating silver linings. It slips its little hand in yours, and whispers ‘Cheer up!’ If King Lear had had a tankard of it handy, we should have had far less of that ‘Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!’ stuff.

On __(A)__ it acted like magic. Hours of brooding over that interview with his Uncle ___(C)___ had brought him into the bar a broken man. At the moment of Mr. ___(D)___’s entry, he was once more facing the future with something like fortitude.

Money, the beer pointed out, was not everything. ‘Look at it this way,’ it argued. ‘It’s absurd to say there aren’t a hundred ways by which a smart and enterprising young fellow can get enough money to marry on. The essential thing about this marrying business is not money, but the girl. If the girl’s all right, everything’s all right. (…) And something is sure to turn up.’

And now Mr __(D)__ had turned up. And at the sight of him it was as if the scales had suddenly fallen from __(A)__’s eyes. Until this moment the idea of trying to secure the purchase price of (____a business opportunity, deleted to preserve the degree of difficulty of the question___) from __(D)__ had never occurred to him.

2. “I been doin’ good,” said __(E)__, virtuously. (…) “I went in and there was a lot of sinful fellers drinkin’ beers. So I spilled ‘em. All of ‘em. Walked around and spilled all of them beers, one after the other. Nor ‘arf surprised them poor sinners wasn’t,” said Mr __(E)__, with what sounded to me not unlike a worldly chuckle.

“I can readily imagine it.”

(…)

“’R!” said Mr __(E)__. He frowned. “Beer,” he proceeded with cold austerity, “ain’t right. Sinful, that’s what beer is. It stingeth like a serpent and biteth like a ruddy adder.”

My mouth watered a little. Beer like that was what I had been scouring the country for years. I thought it imprudent, however, to say so. For some reason which I could not fathom, my companion, once as fond of his half-pint as the next man, seemed to have conceived a puritanical hostility to the beverage.

3. “I think this business of not being allowed to sell heirlooms is perfectly ridiculous. I’ve often said so.”

“Who to?” asked Mr ___(F)___, holding a match to the fountain pen he had taken from his breast pocket in the erroneous supposition that it was a cigar, for he had decided to resume his smoking. Men who indulge too freely in the __(name of pub)__’s home-brewed beer are always making mistakes like that.

4. There is no agony like the agony of a man who wants a couple of quick ones and cannot get them and in the days that followed his interview with ___(G)___, ___(H)___ may be said to have plumbed the depths. (…)

Although nobody who had met him would have been likely to get ___(H)___ confused with the poet Keats, it was extraordinary on what similar lines the two men’s minds worked. ‘Oh, for a beaker full of the warm South, full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene!’ sang Keats, licking his lips, and ‘Oh, for a mug of beer with, if possible, a spot of gin in it!’ sighed __(H)___, licking his; and in quest of the elixir he had visited in turn the __(a list of six different pubs)__ and all the other hostelries at which __(name of town)__ pointed with so much pride.

But everywhere the story was the same. Barmaids had been given their instructions, pot boys warned to be on the alert. They had placed at his disposal gingerbeer, ginger ale, sarsaparilla, lime juice and on one occasion milk but his request for the cup that clears today of past regrets and future fears was met with a firm nolle prosequi. Staunch and incorruptible, the barmaids and the pot boys refused to serve him anything that would have interested Omar Khayam, and he had come away parched and saddened.

5. (There is another scene involving (G), (H), and a tankard of ale a little later in the same book.)

__(G)__ was mildly fond of __(I)__, and had been on the whole rather attracted by the idea of marrying her, but it had not taken him long to see that there was a lot to be said in favour of the celibate life. What was enabling him to bear his loss with such fortitude was the realisation that, now that she had gone and broken off the dashed engagement, there was no longer any need for that bally dieting and exercising nonsense. Once more he was the master of his fate, the captain of his soul, and if he felt like widening his waistline, could jolly well widen it, and no kick coming from any quarter. For days he had been yearning for beer with an almost __(H)__ian intensity, and he was now in a position to yield to the craving. A tankard stood beside him at this very moment, and in the manner in which he raised it to his lips there was something gay and swashbuckling. A woman is only a woman, he seemed to be saying, but a frothing pint is a drink.

Round 278 - 3 July 2006

Speaking in Tongues

This week’s theme is the language barrier and the problems that ensue when one character’s obiter dicta leave someone else grasping at straws. My local NHL ice hockey coach (who recently became an ex-coach due to his team’s performance this past season) has a solution to the difficulties of trying to communicate with players with half a dozen different native languages. “If all else fails, swear at them. Profanity is universal.” Fortunately that solution, while probably ideal in a professional sports arena, isn’t acceptable in the polite society of a Wodehouse novel. Can you identify the principals of the following failures to communicate?

1. “Tea, tea, tea – what? What?” I said.

It wasn’t what I had meant to say. My idea had been to be a good deal more formal, and so on. Still, it covered the situation. I poured her out a cup. She sipped it and put the cup down with a shudder.

“Do you mean to say, young man,” she said, frostily, “that you expect me to drink this stuff?”

“Rather! Bucks you up, you know.”

“What do you mean by the expression ‘Bucks you up’?”

“Well, makes you full of beans, you know. Makes you fizz.”

“I don’t understand a word you say. You’re English, aren’t you?”

I admitted it. She didn’t say a word. And she did it in a way that made it worse than if she had spoken for hours. Somehow it was brought home to me that she didn’t like Englishmen, and that if she had to meet an Englishman I was the one she’d have chosen last.

2. To-day, hurrying on as usual, she had just reached the door and begun to sniff when it suddenly opened and hit her sharply on the nose. And, as she shot back with a yelp of agony, out came __(A)__ (….) brushing past without a word, and all the woman in __(B)__ rose in revolt against such boorishness.

“Just a minute!” she said dangerously. “Just one minute, if you please. Not so fast, my good man. A word with you, if I may trespass upon your valuable time.”

__(A)__, chafing beneath the weight of his wrongs, perceived that they had been added to by a beast of a hairy dog that stood and yapped at him.

“Get out!” he bellowed.

__(B)__ became hysterical.

“Indeed?” she said shrilly. “And who do you think you are, you poor clumsy Robot? You come hitting ladies on the nose as if you were the King of England, and as if that wasn’t enough …”

“Go away, sir.”

“Who the devil are you calling Sir?” __(B)__ had the twentieth century girl’s freedom of speech and breadth of vocabulary.

3. __(C)__ undertook to do the honours. __(C)__ as interpreter was energetic but not wholly successful. He appeared to have a fixed idea that the Italian language was one easily mastered by the simple method of saying “da” instead of “the”, and tacking on a final “a” to any word that seemed to him to need one.

“Say, kid,” he began, “has da rent-a-man come yet-a?”

(…)

“He hasn’t got next,” reported __(C)__. “He can’t git on to me curves. (…) Say, kid, look-a here.” He walked out of the room and closed the door; then, rapping on it smartly from the outside, re-entered and, assuming a look of extreme ferocity, stretched out his hand and thundered: “Unbelt-a! Slip-a me da stuff!”

(…)

“This,” said __(D)__, deeply interested, “is getting about as tense as anything I ever struck. Don’t give in, __(C)__. Who knows but that you may yet win through? I fancy that the trouble is that your too perfect Italian accent is making the youth home-sick. Once more to the breach, __(C)__.”

4. Mrs __(E)__, in her selection of guests, confined herself to the extremely wealthy: and, while the conversation of the extremely wealthy is fascinating in its way, it tends to be a little too technical for the average man.

With the soup, someone who looked like a cartoon of Capital in a Socialistic newspaper said he was glad to see that Westinghouse Common were buoyant again. A man who might have been his brother agreed that they had firmed up nicely at closing. Whereas Wabash Pref. A. falling to 73 7/8, caused shakings of the head. However, one rather liked the look of Royal Dutch Oil Ordinaries at 54 ¾.

(… Followed by three more paragraphs – the first dealing with a lengthy story told over the fish course by United Beef about the Bolivian Land Concession and the second reporting some good natured chaff about the elasticity of the form of credit handled by the Commercial Banks along with a sly retort about the Reserve against Circulation and Total Deposits. Sadly, tempers were becoming a little frayed in a heated discussion about the collateral liabilities of shareholders before Mrs. __(E)__ blew the whistle, leaving the men to their coffee and cigars …)

“Out West,” said Mr __(E)__ in a rumbling undertone, malevolently eyeing Amalgamated Tooth-Brushes, who had begun to talk about the Mid-Continent Fiduciary Conference at St. Louis, “they would shoot at that fellow’s feet.”

__(F)__ agreed that such behaviour could reflect nothing but credit on the West.

5. It was at about five minutes after one that afternoon that Constable ___(G)___, patrolling his beat, was aware of a man motioning to him from the doorway of ___(H)___’s Parisian Café and Restaurant. The man looked like a pig. He grunted like a pig. He had the lavish embonpoint of a pig. Constable ___(G)___ suspected that he had a porcine soul. Indeed, the thought flitted across Constable ___(G)___’s mind that, if he were to tie a bit of blue ribbon around his neck, he could win prizes with him at a show.

“What’s all this?” he inquired, halting.

The stout man talked volubly in French. Constable __(G)__ shook his head.

“Talk sense,” he advised.

Round 279 - 13 July 2006

Interior Decorator Wanted

There are more than a few interior scenes in the canon that would benefit from a visit from the crew of one of those ubiquitous television “make-over” programmes that have contributed greatly to the recent increase in radio ratings and book sales figures. Can you identify the owners or residents of the following domiciles?

1. (…) a rather grubby looking maid had let me in and shown me down a passage and into a room with pink paper on the walls, a piano in the corner and a lot of photographs on the mantelpiece. Barring a dentist’s waiting room, which it rather resembles, there isn’t anything that quells the spirit much more than one of these suburban parlours. They are extremely apt to have stuffed birds in glass cases standing about on small tables. (…) There were three of these cases in the parlour of [name of house], so that, wherever you looked, you were sure to connect. Two were singletons, the third a family group, consisting of a father bullfinch, a mother bullfinch, and little Master Bullfinch, the last named of whom wore an expression that was definitely that of a thug, and did more to damp my joie de vivre than all the rest of them put together.

2. There is probably no more depressing experience in the world than the process of engaging furnished apartments. Those who let furnished apartments seem to take no joy in the act. Like Pooh-Bah, they do it, but it revolts them.

(…) The procession moved up a dark flight of stairs until it came to a door. The pantomime dame opened this, and shuffled through. ___(A)__ stood in the doorway, and looked in.

It was a repulsive room. One of those characterless rooms which are only found in furnished apartments. To ___(A)___, used to the comforts of his bedroom at home and the cheerful simplicity of a school dormitory, it seemed about the most dismal spot he had ever struck. A sort of Sargasso Sea among bedrooms.

(…) “It’s a nice room,” said the pantomime dame. Which was a black lie. It was not a nice room. It never had been a nice room. And it did not seem at all probable that it ever would be a nice room. But it looked cheap. That was the great thing. Nobody could have the assurance to charge much for a room like that. A landlady with a conscience might even have gone to the length of paying people some small sum by way of compensation to them for sleeping in it.

3. [Name of house], when ___(B)___ reached it some days later, proved to be a noble old pile of Tudor architecture, situated in rolling parkland and flanked by pleasant gardens leading to a lake with a tree-fringed boathouse. Inside, it was comfortably furnished and decorated throughout with groves of glass cases containing the goggle-eyed remnants of birds and beasts assassinated at one time or another by ___(C)___ and his son, ___(D)___. From every wall there peered down with an air of mild reproach selected portions of the gnus, moose, elks, zebus, antelopes, giraffes, mountain goats and wapiti which had had the misfortune to meet ___(E)___ before lumbago spoiled him for the chase. The cemetery also included a few stuffed sparrows, which showed that little ___(F)___ was doing his bit.

4. (Following in the footsteps of a well known historical figure, your Quizmaster cannot tell a lie. The source book containing the following extract is quite rare but, for those of you who don't own a copy, the text can be found on-line.)

Even I, desirous as I was of seeing romance in everything, could not call my lodgings anything but dingy, dark, and commonplace. (…) The furniture had been put in during the reign of George III, and last dusted in that of William and Mary. A black horse-hair sofa ran along one wall. There was a deal table, a chair, and a rickety bookcase. It was a room for a realist to write in; and my style, such as it was, was bright and optimistic.

Once in, I set about the task of ornamenting my abode with much vigour. I had my own ideas of mural decoration. I papered the walls with editorial rejection forms, of which I was beginning to have a representative collection. Properly arranged, these look very striking. There is a good deal of variety about them. The ones I liked best were those which I received, at the rate of three a week, bearing a very pleasing picture, in green, of the publishing offices at the top of the sheet of note-paper. Scattered about in sufficient quantities, these lend an air of distinction to a room. Pearson's Magazine also supplies a taking line in rejection forms. Punch's I never cared for very much. Neat, I grant you; but, to my mind, too cold. I like a touch of colour in a rejection form.

In addition to these, I purchased from the grocer at the corner a collection of pictorial advertisements. (…) My next step was to buy a corncob pipe and a quantity of rank, jet-black tobacco. I hated both, and kept them more as ornaments than for use.

Then, having hacked my table about with a knife and battered it with a poker till it might have been the table of a shaggy and unrecognised genius, I settled down to work.

5. He opened the door. “Well, here we are. Will you pop in for a moment?”

__(G)__ went in. The single sitting-room of the cottage certainly bore out the promise of the exterior. It contained a table with a red cloth, a chair, three stuffed birds in a glass case on the wall, and a small horsehair sofa. A depressing musty scent pervaded the place, as if a cheese had recently died there in painful circumstances. __(G)__ gave a little shiver of distaste.

“I understand your silent criticism,” said __(H)__. (…) “It was in the hope that you might be able to offer some hints and suggestions for small improvements here and there that I invited you to inspect my little place. There is no doubt that it wants doing up a bit, by a woman’s gentle hand. Will you take a look round and give out a few ideas? The wall-paper is, I fear, a fixture, but in every other direction consider yourself untrammelled.”

(One chapter later __(G)__ and a male accomplice, known here as __(I)__, did a spot of vigorous redecorating with the following lamentable results…)

The torn carpet lay in an untidy heap against the wall. The table was overturned. Boards had been wrenched from the floor, bricks from the chimney-place. The horsehair sofa was in ribbons, and the one small cushion in the room lay limply in a corner, its stuffing distributed north, south, east and west. There was soot everywhere – on the walls, on the floor, on the fire-place, and on __(I)__. A brace of dead bats, the further result of the latter’s groping in a chimney which had not been swept for seven months, reposed in the fender. The sitting-room had never been luxurious; it was now not even cosy.

Round 280 - 22 July 2006

Foreign Royalty

The King of Oom, the Queen of Stormy Emotion, the Prince of Mervo, and the Spotted Princess of the Fiji Islands are just a few of the members of foreign royal families Wodehouse readers are familiar with. Even Marie Antoinette makes a brief cameo appearance to get jabbed in a squashy portion of her anatomy by an assegai-wielding Zulu warrior. Can you pinpoint the location in the Wodehouse canon of the following Royals?

1. “It is fixed and settled. She accepted me this morning.”

“Good Lord! That’s quick work. You haven’t known her two weeks!”

“Not in this life, no,” said __(A)__. “But she has a sort of idea that we must have met in some previous existence. She thinks I must have been a king in Babylon when she was a Christian slave. I can’t say I remember it myself, but there may be something in it.”

“Great Scott!” I said. “Do waitresses really talk like that?”

2. “I have loved her since she was so high.”

“How high?” asked __(B)__, for the light was uncertain.

“About so high. And I have always sworn that if ever any man came between us, if ever any slinking, sneaking, pop-eyed, lop-eared son of a sea-cook attempted to rob me of that girl, I would …”

“Er – what?” asked __(B)__.

___(C)___ laughed a short, metallic laugh.

“Did you ever hear what I did to the King of Mgumbo-Mgumbo?”

“I didn’t even know there was a King of Mgumbo-Mgumbo.”

“There isn’t – now,” said ___(C)___.

3. “I was afraid for a moment that I had got into the wrong house. But it’s all right. You see, I met Mr __(D)__ a short while ago and he brought me back here to spend the night.”

“Oh?” said __(E)__. “Did he? Ho! Oh, indeed?”

__(F)__ looked at her anxiously. He did not like her manner.

“You believe me, don’t you?”

“No, I don’t. (…) What I say is if you were all right and you really knew Mr __(D)__ you wouldn’t be going about in a suit of clothes like that. You look like a tramp.”

“ (…) You mustn’t go judging people by appearances. (…) You have got me all wrong. I’m a millionaire – or rather, my uncle is.”

“Mine’s the Shah of Persia.”

4. “When was your first meeting?”

“One morning in her shop. (..five lines of conversational small talk edited out for reasons of space..) I went in because I had seen her through the window.”

“Love at first sight?”

“It was at my end.”

“What happened then?”

(Seven more lines of conversational chit-chat snipped for reasons of space.)

“Some lunches.”

“Many?”

“No. She always seemed to be booked up. She was very popular. Whenever I met her, there was always a gang of Freddies, Algies and Claudes from the Brigade of Guards frisking round her. That’s why asking her to marry me seemed such a long shot. I didn’t think I had a hope. After all, who am I?”

“You are my godson,” said __(G)__ with dignity, “and furthermore you have a golf handicap of six. Dash it all, __(H)__, __(I)__ isn’t the Queen of Sheba.”

“Yes she is.”

“Or Helen of Troy.”

“Yes she is. And also Cleopatra. You ought to know. You’ve met her.”

5. For a Bonus Point, the Queen of Sheba and Helen of Troy make several other appearances in the canon. Can you identify the young lady who turned down a dinner invitation on the grounds that she had a prior dinner engagement with her cousin, a private detective? When her new admirer claimed to be a millionaire, she replied, “And I’m the Queen of Sheba.” Upon which he shook his head and said, “The Queen of Sheba was a brunette. You’re more the Helen of Troy type. Not that Helen of Troy was in your class. You begin where she left off.”

6. Now we’re looking for the identity of the newly crowned King of the Coney Island Mardi Gras who, reflecting on his Royal duties, remarked, “I’m not so far short of being a regular king. Coney’s just as big as some of those kingdoms you read about on the other side; and, from what you see in the papers about the goings-on there, it looks to me that, having a whole week on the throne like I’m going to have, amounts to a pretty steady job as kings go.”