Wodehouse at Work (I): Tutors

Not all of Wodehouse's characters are Drones. Even the Hon. Clarence Tresillian knows a man who knows a fellow who had met a man whose cousin worked. During the next four weeks, we shall examine some professions featured in Wodehouse's work.

Name the tutors, former tutors, or potential future tutors.

1. The tutor flung himself back in his chair, which creaked protestingly.

"Do you realize that yours is a position which thousands of boys would give their eyes to be in?"

"Can't you see that's not grammar?" said A__. Much as he disliked these séances, it happened now and then that bits of them stuck in his mind. "Oughtn't to end a sentence with 'in'. You put me right, so I don't mind puttin' you right. Had you that time. Hot dog!" he said with a complacency which made the tutor feel – not for the first time – that his favourite character in history was Herod the Great.

2. "Right ho, grandpapa. I say," said B__, shelving the topic, "who's the bird talking to C__?"

He pointed – a vulgarism which a good tutor would have corrected – and D__, following the finger, winced as his eye rested once more upon E__. …

"He is going to be your tutor."

"Tutor?"

The word was a cry of agony forced from the depths of the boy's soul. A stunned sense that all the fundamental decencies of life were being outraged had swept over B__. His voice was thick with emotion.

"Tutor?" he cried. "Tew-tor? Ter-YEW-tor? In the middle of the summer holidays? What have I got to have a tutor for in the middle of the summer holidays?"

3. "I didn't get any letter."

"Then I must have forgotten to post it. It was to tell you that I was down here tutoring your Cousin F__, and that it was essential that, when we met, you should treat me as a perfect stranger."

"But why?"

"Because, if your aunt supposed that I was a pal of yours, she would naturally sack me on the spot."

"Why?"

G__ raised his eyebrows.

"Why? Be reasonable, H__. If you were your aunt, and you knew the sort of chap you were, would you let a fellow you knew to be your best pal tutor your son?"

Name G, who is, as he puts it, "tutoring a kid who requires not education in the Greek and Latin languages but a swift slosh on the base of the skull with a black-jack."

4. "Since then I have worked in a shop, done typewriting, been on the stage, had a position as a governess, been a lady's maid –"

"A what! A lady's maid?"

"Why not? It was all experience; and I can assure you I would much rather be a lady's maid than a governess."

"I think I know what you mean. I was a private tutor once. I suppose a governess is the female equivalent. I have often wondered what General Sherman would have said about private tutoring if he expressed himself so breezily about mere war."

Extra Credit #1 (for full credit, you must name not only the applicant for the tutoring job, but his prospective employer):

"Well, upon my Sam, old horse, this is the most amazing coincidence I ever came across in my puff. It's none other than J__ who is the bird who wants a tutor for his son. ... Here's what you want to do, laddie. ... 'Oh, by the way, J__,' you say, 'my old friend K__ tells me he is lunching with you today, and that you are considering engaging him to ram a bit of education into your ruddy son's ivory skull.'"

Extra Credit #2: Name the tutor referred to in the following telegram:

"Before doing anything else sack that fool of a tutor, then go to Agency and have them recommend good private school for boy. On no account engage another tutor. They make me tired."

Round 282 - 8 August 2006

Veterinarians

1. "This bolus of which you were speaking. You were giving it to a cow, you say?"

"A sick cow."

"Oh, a sick cow? Well, here's the point that's perplexing me. Here's the thing that seems to me to need straightening out. Why were you giving boluses to sick cows?"

"It's my job. I'm the local vet."

"What! You don't by any chance means a veterinary surgeon?"

"That's right. Fully licensed. We're all workers nowadays."

Name the vet, whose patients include a Peke described as "the worst hypochondriac".

2. And so for perhaps two weeks something approaching tranquillity reigned once more in my cousin Edward's son's studio in Bott Street, Chelsea. The veterinary surgeon issued encouraging reports. He claimed a distinct improvement in A__'s character and appearance, though he added that he would still not care to meet him at night in a lonely alley.

Name A, the vet's patient.

3. Although, as he had told B__, since the sinister affair of the rejected potato Mr C__, the veterinary surgeon, had several times assured him that the noble animal was in mid-season form and concern on his part quite unnecessary, he was still as uneasy as ever. Admitted that Mr C__ was a recognized expert whose skill in his profession had won golden opinions from all sorts of men, he might for once have been mistaken. Alternatively, he might have discerned symptoms of some wasting sickness, and not wanting to cause him anxiety had Kept It From Him.

For full credit, name the vet as well as the patient.

4. Beside him, looking like a Scotch elder rebuking sin, was the dog D__.

"Good evening, sir," he said. "I have been taking this little fellow to the veterinary surgeon. Miss E__ was uneasy because he bit Mr F__. She was afraid he might have caught something. I am glad to say that the surgeon has given him a clean bill of health."

Name the dog, its owner, and the bite victim.

5. ... Before he knew what he was doing he had let out a sharp, whinnying cry which rang through the room like the yowl of a stepped-on puppy.

"Ah," said G__. "The vet wishes to speak to me. Yes, vet?" ...

He shifted across to H__ and twiddled his hands enquiringly. H__ gaped back, and it was not until one of the hands caught him smartly in the middle ribs that he remembered he was deaf and started to twiddle back. ...

"I cannot quite understand what he says," announced G__ at length, "because he sprained a finger this morning and that makes him stammer. But I gather that he wishes to have a word with me in private. Possibly my parrot has got something the matter with it which he is reluctant to mention even in sign language in front of a young unmarried girl. You know what parrots are."

Name the pseudo-vet.

Round 283 - 16 August 2006

This week's quiz has been placed in the hands of Wodehouse's solicitors.

1. Mr A__, the well-known solicitor ... of the firm of Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith, and so on, of Lincoln's Inn Fields, leaned back in his chair and said that he hoped he had made everything clear.

He accompanied the remark with one of those short, roopy coughs by means of which solicitors announce that a conference is concluded, and B__ came out of his meditations with a start. Mr A__ had always reminded him of a bird, and in the attempt to decide just what kind of bird he had allowed his attention to wander.

Name both A, the solicitor, and B.

2. London solicitors come in every size and shape, but they have this in common, that with a few negligible exceptions they all look like some species of bird. C__'s Uncle John, for instance, that guiding spirit of Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith of Lincoln's Inn Fields, resembled a cassowary, while elsewhere you would find owls, ducks, sparrows, parrots, and an occasional ptarmigan. D__'s legal adviser, a Mr E__ of E__, Satterthwaite and Miles, could have mixed without exciting comment in any gathering of vultures in the Gobi Desert, though his associates would have been able to expose him as an impostor when meal time came, for unlike the generality of vultures he had a weak digestion and had to be careful what he ate.

Name solicitor E, the vulture.

3. "And she asked me to ask you," said F__, "if you knew any private eyes."

"You mean shamuses?"

"That's right."

"I don't, and I don't want to. Frightful bounders, all of them, from what I've heard. Always watching husbands and wives and trying to get the necessary evidence. We of the Force look down on them like anything. Does G__ want to scoop one in to try and find her husband?"

"That's the idea." ...

"I'll tell you what I think her best plan would be. She ought to ask her solicitor."

"Why, of course. A solicitor would probably know dozens of private detectives."

"I think so. Solicitors always have oodles of shady work to be done – documents stolen from rival firms, heirs kidnapped, wills pinched and destroyed and so on."

Name the two speakers and G.

4. Voices outside warned him of the approach of his wife and the family solicitor.

H__'s description of Mr J__, of the legal firm of Polk, J__, Polk and Polk, as an old bloke with a face like a halibut had been, if not entirely justified, at any rate reasonably close to the mark. The solicitor was well stricken in years, and his large, glassy eyes, peering through their spectacles, did suggest those of some kind of fish. He came in now in that wary manner peculiar to lawyers, looking from side to side as if expecting to see torts hiding behind the curtains and misdemeanours under the piano.

Again, name the solicitor.

Extra Credit: Identify K and the crime for which the speaker expects him to get arrested.

"If K__ rings up tomorrow and says he is in prison and wants bail, tell him to get in touch immediately with his solicitors, Shoesmith, Shoesmith, Shoesmith and Shoesmith of Lincoln's Inn Fields. ... He's sure to have forgotten their name."

Round 284 - 25 August 2006

After quizzes on tutors, veterinarians, and solicitors, we continue our theme of professions in Wodehouse. This week, we have a non-credit challenge: How long will it take you to figure out which profession we highlight this week?

1. "Why are you got up like a policeman?"

"I am a policeman."

"A policeman?"

"Yes."

"When you say "policeman,"" I queried, groping, "do you mean "policeman"?"

"Yes."

"You're a policeman?"

"Yes, blast you. Are you deaf? I'm a policeman."

I grasped it now. He was a policeman.

Name the policeman.

2. "I ought to have told you, by the way, that she's engaged to the policeman."

... "Which policeman would that be?"

"The one in the village. There's only one. His name's A__."

"Shortsighted chap?"

"Not that I know of. Why?"

"I was only thanking that it would be very difficult to be attracted to B__ while seeing her steadily and seeing her whole. However, that is neither here nor there. Policemen are paid to take these risks."

Name the policeman and his inamorata.

3. He opened the door, and found standing on the steps a large policeman, who gave him one of those keen, penetrating looks which make policemen so unpopular.

"Ho," he said, in the sort of voice usually described as steely.

He was tough and formidable, like the policemen in C__'s stories. ...

(After a few paragraphs, the policeman unbends.)

"Down at the station the boys think there's one of those crime waves starting. Two milk cans abstracted from doorsteps only last week, and now all this to-do up at D__ Hall. You have heard about E__'s pig, no doubt, sir?"

C__ leaped an inch or two.

"Pig?"

"His prize pig, F__. Stolen," said the policeman impressively. "Snitched out of its sty and so far not a trace of the miscreant. But we'll apprehend him. Oh yes, we'll apprehend him all right, and then he'll regret his rash act. Very serious matter, pig stealing. I wouldn't care to be in the shoes of the fellow that's got that pig. He's laughing now," said the policeman, quite incorrectly, "but he won't be laughing long."

To receive credit, name not only F, the pig, but C.

4. The policeman sighed.

"I'm an orphan," he said, "without brothers or sisters."

"Too bad."

"Stark," agreed the policeman. "Very stark and poignant. You don't think I could have seen a photograph of you anywhere, Mr G__?"

"Haven't been taken for years."

"Strange!" said H__ meditatively. "Somehow – I cannot tell why – I seem to associate your face with a photograph."

Name both the policeman and his new acquaintance.

5. "I had the information from my uncle, who is a magistrate here. He came to lunch at my flat today, and as he was leaving he caught sight of your photograph on the wall."

"I didn't know you kept my photograph on your wall, J__. I'm touched."

He continued to ferment.

"It was a group photograph," he said curtly, "and you happened to be in it. ... He said you had been up before him this morning, charged with assaulting a policeman, who stated that he had arrested you for tripping him up while he was chasing a girl with platinum hair in a night club."

I pursed the lips. Or, rather, I tried to, but something seemed to have gone wrong with the machinery. Still, I spoke boldly and with spirit.

"Indeed?" I said. "Personally I would be inclined to attach little credence to the word of the sort of policeman who spends his time chasing platinum-haired girls in night clubs."

Name the platinum-haired g.

Extra credit: Which Wodehouse hero falls in love with the heroine when he sees her bean a policeman with a dustbin (or, in the US edition, an ashcan)?

Round 285 - 2 September 2006

More like "something tum-tumpty something" than anything human

In Concealed Art (1915), artist Archie Ferguson in a newspaper photograph looks more like his creation, Pa Doughnut, than like anything human. What other characters in later years resembled the following specified entities more they did anything human?

1. Something out of Dickens

My head being now up, I was able to see ___A___, and I found that he was regarding me with an eye so benevolent that I could hardly believe that this was the same __(professional title omitted)__ with whom I had so recently been hobnobbing, if you can call it hobnobbing when a couple of fellows sit in a couple of chairs for twenty minutes without saying a word to each other. It was plain that joy had made him the friend of all the world, even to the extent of allowing him to look at ___B___ without a shudder. He was more like something out of Dickens than anything human.

2. A Spectacled Thundercloud

" Tell me, ___C___," he said, "are you doing anything just now, ___C___?"

"Yes," replied the other with no trace of hesitation. "I am going to look for ___D___."

A convulsive gulp prevented ___E___ from speaking for an instant.

... (in some intervening paragraphs a job offer is made to C) ...

A great change for the better had come over ____C___. It was as if those words had been a magic formula, filling with sweetness and light one who until that moment had been more like a spectacled thundercloud than anything human.

3. An Aunt

"Motherly, my foot!" he said aloud, and __F__, who was entering at the moment, paused and eyed him with not a little astonishment.

"I beg your pardon?"

___G__ sprang to his feet.

"Oh, hullo. I didn't know you were there. I – er – I was sort of soliloquizing. Like those blokes in Shakespeare. Er – was there anything?"

"I was looking for Mr__H__."

"He went off to the theatre. Was there something special you wanted to see him about?"

"Yes," said __F___. "There was."

__G___ could now see that there was a peculiar expression on the substantial blonde's face. A bleak, austere expression. She was looking more like an aunt than anything human.

4. Groucho Marx

On such occasions he starts off sprightly and continues sprightly till closing time, and it is the same in private life. There, too, his sprightliness is a byword. ___J___ and __K___ , who do each year at the Drones smoker the knockabout Pat and Mike cross-talk act of which he is the author and producer, have told me that when rehearsing them in their lines and business, he is more like Groucho Marx than anything human.

Extra Credit

The following are all described as resembling a _____. What? (It is not specified that they resemble this more than anything human, just that they all bring this same something to mind.)

Tuppy Glossop
Sir Hercules Foliot-Foljambe
The Empress of Blandings
TP Brinkmeyer (aka Brinkwater)

Round 286 - 11 September 2006

Tennis

Views vary:

The Oldest Member spoke of it as "outdoor ping-pong" and wondered aloud "what sort of life companion would a tennis player be?"

on the other hand others have higher regard for the game

"His service was bottled lightning.His returns behaved like jumping crackers."
Love Among the Chickens, Ch. XIII.

I await returns like jumping crackers.

1. ... _A_ announced that some people were coming over on the morrow for a spot of tennis, and I feared that the worst must now befall.

_B_, you see, is one of those fellows who, once their fingers close over the handle of a tennis racquet, fall into a sort of trance in which nothing outside the radius of the lawn exists for them. If you came up to _B__ in the middle of a set and told him that panthers were devouring his best friend in the kitchen garden, he would look at you and say: "Oh, ah?" or words to that effect.

...

"Eh?" said __B_, absently. Already the tennis look had come into his face, and his eye was glazed. He swung his racquet and snorted a little.

2. "My dear _C__, I am sorry to give you pain, but Miss_D_ is a tennis player. I have seen her with my own eyes leaping about the court shouting 'Forty love,' 'Thirty all' and similar obscenities."

He astounded me by receiving my words with a careless nod.

"Yes, she told me she played tennis."

"And you still love her?"

"Of course I still love her."

3. "Oh, that chap? Yes, I've heard of him. Goes around shouting 'Forty-love' and 'Love-fifteen' and all that sort of thing ... There's something about him I'm trying to remember ..."

...

"_E_? _E__? __E_? Ah, perhaps you can tell me, _F__."

...

"Tell you what?"

"All you know about a man called _E___."

"He plays tennis."

"I am aware of that. But what is there about him that gives me the idea that he is somehow significant? Has he a sideline of any sort?"

"I don't believe so. Just keeps on playing tennis as far as I ..."

[several paragraphs intervene]

"Shall I tell him, or will you?"

I'll tell him," said _G_

...

"_E_ is married," said __G_, and it was as though he had been playing for the Possibles in that England trial game and one of the Probables had hurled himself on some particularly tender portion of his anatomy ...

4. When the game was over – 6-0, 6-0 – _J_ inquired of _K_ if she thought he would ever be a good tennis player. The girl gave him a curious look and asked if he had read any good books lately. _J_ mentioned a few, and she said that she had enjoyed them, too, and wondered how authors managed to think up these things. She was starting to touch on the new plays, when __J_, bluntly bringing up once more a subject which he had a feeling that she was evading, repeated his question.

Again the girl seemed to hesitate, and it was _L_ who took upon himself the onus of reply, sticking his oar in with insufferable heartiness.

"The problem which you have propounded, my dear fellow," he said, "is one which it is not easy to answer. A 'good' tennis player, you say. Well, I feel sure you will always be a moral tennis player, a virtuous, upright tennis player ..."

5. The flannel-clad form of __M_ appeared at a window.

"Hullo! Down in a jiffy."

There was an interval. Then __M_ joined her on the drive.

"Hullo! I say, you haven't brought your racket, you poor chump," he said.

"Tennis is off," announced _N_ briefly. "I've got to drive _O__ in to Hertford."

She paused. "I say, _M_ shall I tell you something?"

"What?"

"Between ourselves."

"Absolutely."

"Mother wants me to marry _O__."

__M_ uttered a strangled exclamation. Such was his emotion that he nearly swallowed the first eight inches of his cigarette-holder.

"Marry __O__!"

Extra Credit: That was June. This is July. And in the intervening weeks we have seen ___ do his stuff, and the scales have fallen from our eyes.

For some days it seemed as thought no opposition could live against ___. Nothing like his first serve, the fast one, had ever been seen

...

It was a serve that relied entirely on moral suasion . It was a sort of frightfulness. Leaping some feet into the air, ___ would hurl the ball to the clouds, strike it with hideous violence, and return to earth with a loud grunt. And his pallid opponent, cowering on the other side of the net, was invariably so unnerved by these phenomena that he nearly always failed to return the second serve, which was of a milder nature and more semicircular, reminiscent rather of the gentle rain after a thunderstorm.

Round 287 - 19 September 2006

Lobsters

These crustaceans appear in the canon in various roles: some characters grip like lobsters, others look like them and many more enjoy lobster salads for luncheon and lobster and champagne suppers. Some are referred to as lobsters for no apparent reason. Identify the players below.

1. At this point, __A_ came up. I hadn't seen him look so jaunty for days.

"I've just been superintending the packing of the lunch-basket, _B__," he said. "I stood over the butler and saw that there was no nonsense."

"All pretty sound?" I asked, relieved.

"All indubitably sound."

"No carrots?"

"No carrots," said __A__. "There's ham sandwiches," he proceeded, a strange, soft light in his eyes, "and tongue sandwiches and potted meat sandwiches and game sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs and lobster and a cold chicken and sardines and a cake and a couple of bottles of Bollinger and some old brandy –"

2. "What do you mean – ages and ages ago?" said __C_, starting.

"Ages and ages ago," repeated _D_ firmly, "before he had to emigrate to America and leave the dear old place to be sold. He has loving childhood recollections of the lawn where he played as a kiddy and worships every brick in the place. All his favourite relations pegged out in the rooms upstairs, and all like that. Well, I'm here to say," concluded _D_ emphatically, "that if that guy has any sentiment in him and if _E__ has done the preliminary work properly, he'll drop."

There was a tense silence.

"It'll work," said __C_.

"It might work," said _E__, more doubtfully.

"It will work," said __C_. "I shall be good. I will have that lobster weeping into his handkerchief inside three minutes."

3. "... He might have known that the fiend would hatch some devilish plot for his undoing. And he did. _F__ lunched with __G_ at the latter's club yesterday. On the bill of fare was cold lobster, and this Machiavelli sicked him on to it."

I looked at her incredulously.

"You aren't going to tell me," I said, astounded, for I was familiar with the intensely delicate and finely poised mechanism of his tummy, "that __F_ ate lobster? After what happened last Christmas?"

"At this man's instigation, he appears to have eaten not only pounds of lobster, but forests of sliced cucumbers as well."

4. "It's very good," said _J__..."It's about this mad professor who gets this girl into his toils and tries to turn her into a lobster."

"Tries to turn her into a lobster?" echoed we, surprised.

"Yes, sir. Into a lobster. It seems he collected thousands and thousands of lobsters and mashed them up and boiled down the juice from their glands and was just going to inject it into this __K_'s spinal column when _L__ broke into the house and stopped him."

"Why did he do that?"

"Because he didn't want the girl he loved to be turned into a lobster."

"What we mean," said we, "is why did the professor want to turn the girl into a lobster?"

"He had a grudge against her."

5. __M__ settled himself more comfortably in bed.

"Read me the piece where it says about Curried Lobster."

__N_ cleared his throat.

"'Curried Lobster,'"he read. "'Materials: Two two-pound lobsters, two teaspoonfuls lemon juice, half a spoonful curry powder, two tablespoonfuls butter, one tablespoonful flour, one cup scalded milk, one cup cracker crumbs, half teaspoonful salt, quarter teaspoonful pepper.'"

"Go on."

"'Way of Preparing: Cream the butter and flour and add the scalded milk, then add the lemon juice, curry powder, salt and pepper. Remove the lobster meat from the shells and cut into half-inch cubes.'"

"'Half-inch cubes,'" sighed __M_ wistfully. "Yes?"

"'Add the latter to the sauce.'"

"You didn't say anything about the latter. Oh, I see, it means the half-inch cubes. Yes?"

6. "How was your lecture? Did you massacre them?"

"It was a great success. Everybody most enthusiastic."

"You're back early. Couldn't you touch the girls for lunch?"

__P__ clicked her tongue.

"My dear __Q__, have you forgotten that I'm giving a big luncheon party to-day? All sorts of important people are coming, including _R__ ."

"Of ____? The man who looks like a lobster?"

"He does not look like a lobster."

"Pardon me, he looks much more like a lobster than most lobsters do."

"Well, whatever he looks like, I don't want him mistaking you for one of the gardeners, I trust you intend to change into something reasonably respectable before he arrives."

Round 288 - 26 September 2006

Misunderstandings and Intricacies of the English L.

Poor F. Widgeon felt obligated to provide a "mille" to a former school-fellow and discovered belatedly that only a "meal" was what was meant and that the school-fellow wasn't, anyway. Gargling noises get interpreted as some kind of fit when they were meant as proposals of marriage and build-ups on behalf of pals are misconstrued as proposals of marriage. Who fails to make himself clear and who to grasp the gist in the following?

1. _A_' s concern increased. He seemed to be twiddling at this voluble man across seas of misunderstanding. Nothing is harder to interpret to a nicety than a twiddle, and _A_'s idea of the language of twiddles and the high-priest's idea did not coincide by a mile. The high-priest appeared to consider that, when _A_ twiddled, it was his intention to bid in hundreds, whereas in fact _A_ had meant to signify that he raised the previous bid by just one dollar. _A_ felt that, if given time, he could make this clear to the high-priest, but the latter gave him no time. He had got his audience, so to speak, on the run, and he proposed to hustle them before they could rally.

2. Then I took his head and waggled it sideways once or twice, and he took my hand in his mouth and gnawed it slightly. Then I rolled him over and began punching his chest; and then, when these civilities were finished, I got up and looked round for the satchel.

...

And then I heard footsteps.

I looked round. A cove was approaching.

" Is this your cottage?" I asked.

He was a rural-looking sort of cove, with a full beard and corduroy trousers with string tied round the knees. He came up and stood gazing at the car. Then he looked at me, and then at the car again.

"Ah?" he said. A bit deaf he seemed to be.

"Is this your cottage?"

"Ah."

"We stopped here to get some water."

He said he hadn't got a daughter. I said I never said he had.

"Water!"

"Ah."

"But there was nobody in. So the man with me went down the road."

"Ah," said the cove.

"He was frightened by your dog."

"Ah?"

"By your dog."

"Buy my dog?"

"Yes."

"You can have him for five shillings."

3. "As a matter of fact, I want to have a serious talk with you. About _B_. He told me you had come into money. Correct?"

"Quite correct."

"Then for heavens sake don't let him borrow it for one of his schemes. Has he tried?"

"He did mention something about starting an Advice to the Lovelorn bureau."

...

"What do you plan to do with your wealth?"

"I was telling _B__. I'm going to settle down in the country somewhere."

"What will you do there? Raise chickens?"

"Write."

"Oh? Well, I suppose you know your own business best," said__C_ dubiously. "I don't think I'd like to run a poultry farm myself."

_D__ saw that the intricacies of the English language had misled her.

"When I said write, I didn't mean right, I meant write," he said helpfully.

"Oh, write?"

"Right."

4. There seemed just one hope – to make a face at the croupier and do it with such consummate skill that the other would see that he wanted those thirty-two hundred francs taken off the board and put on one side till he was at liberty to come and collect. So he threw his whole soul into a face, and the croupier nodded intelligently and left the money on. _E__ he saw, was signalling to him to let the works ride for another spin, and he admired his sporting spirit.

5. "But I don't understand."

"What don't you understand?"

"Well, don't think for a moment that I'm complaining, but this flinging-into-arms sequence strikes me as odd."

"I can't imagine why. I love you."

"But when I asked you to be my wife, you rose and walked haughtily from the room."

"I didn't."

"You did. I was there."

"I mean, I didn't walk haughtily. I hurried out because I was alarmed and agitated. You sat there gasping and gurgling, and I thought you were having a fit of some kind. So I rushed off to phone the doctor, and when I got back you had gone. And then a day or two later another man proposed to me, and he, too, started gasping and gurgling, and I realized the truth. They told me at your office that you were living here, so I came along to let you know that I loved you."

"You really do?"

"Of course I do. I loved you the first moment I saw you. You remember? You were explaining to father that thirteen copies count as twelve, and I came in and our eyes met. In that instant I knew that you were the only man in the world for me."

6. The difficulty was, how to get _F_ down without scaring the man. I knew that if I shouted he wouldn't wait, but would be out of the window and away before _F_ could get there. What I had to do was go to _F_'s room, explain the whole situation quietly to him, and ask him to come down and make himself pleasant.

... [the narrator goes to F_'s room and is admitted]

"Don't make a noise," I whispered. "Come on downstairs. I want you to meet a friend of mine."

At first he was quite peevish.

"What"s the idea," he said, "coming and spoiling a man's beauty-sleep? Get out."

He actually started to go back into the room.

"No, honestly, _F_," I said, "I'm not fooling you. There is a man downstairs. He got in through the window. I want you to meet him."

For a bonus point, name at least three instances of marriages being deferred from days to decades because one contracting party misunderstood the registry office, day, or time suggested by the other.

Round 289 - 4 October 2006

Crusades

And now, laydeezun-gennelmun, for a truly shocking, frightfully politically incorrect quiz round! Please name the following descendants and/or imitators of the crusaders. (Disclaimer: no paynim was harmed in the making of this quiz.)

1. The more I thought about this enterprise which a sense of duty and good citizenship had thrust upon me, the better it seemed to me. I am not a vindictive man, but I felt, as anybody would have felt in my place, that if fellows like young A___ are allowed to get away with it the whole fabric of Society and Civilization must inevitably crumble. The task to which I had set myself was one that involved hardship and discomfort, for it meant sitting up till well into the small hours and then padding down a cold corridor, but I did not shrink from it. After all, there is a lot to be said for family tradition. We B___s did our bit in the Crusades.

2. "Are you suggesting, C___, that this poor girl shall wait till September for the fulfilment of her hopes and dreams? It is obvious that time is of the essence and that we must rush to her assistance immediately. I, unfortunately, am a little too old to bop policemen on the nose, much as I should enjoy it, so the task devolves on you. See to it as soon as possible."

"But, dash it –"

"And don't say 'But, dash it'. You remind me of our mutual ancestor, D___, who got a bad name in the days of the Crusades from curling up in bed and murmuring 'Some other time', when they asked him to come and do his bit at the battle of Joppa."

3. But now that a Broadway first night audience had received the show rapturously, now that eight critics out of nine had submitted excellent notices (and the ninth not too dashed bad), now that long queues of charming and intelligent playgoers were lining up at the box office, eager to shower their money on the autocrat behind the window, E___ had blossomed like some lovely flower. His eyes gleamed. His butter-coloured hair seemed to shine. He held himself jauntily and gave the impression of being three inches taller than he actually was. It was with the air of a conquering knight coming home to his lady after a successful couple of years at the Crusades that he now folded F___ in a close embrace, covered her upturned face with burning kisses and told her that of all the outstanding eggs that ever drew perfumed breath, she was the most pre-eminent.

4. G___ remembered a good one.

"I have your best interests at heart, my dear."

It did not go very well. A distinct sheet of flame shot from the girl's eyes.

"What do you mean, my best interests? The way Aunt H___ talks, and the way you are backing her up, anyone would think that J___ was someone in a straw hat and a scarlet cummerbund that I'd picked up on the pier at Blackpool. The K___s [J___'s family name] are one of the oldest families in Devonshire. They date back to the Conquest, and they practically ran the Crusades. When your ancestors were staying at home on the plea of war work of national importance and wangling jobs at the base, the K___s were out fighting the Paynim."

"I was at school with a boy named K___," said G___ musingly.

5. "I used to go in quite a lot for amateur boxing," said L___ with a little yawn. "But I got bored with it. Not enough competition. Too little excitement. So I took on pros. But I found them so extraordinarily brittle that I chucked the whole thing. That was when M___ had to go to hospital for two months after one of our bouts. I collect old china now."

Brave words, of course, but he watched his visitor depart with emotions that were not too fearfully bright. In fact, he tells me, he actually toyed for a moment with the thought that there might be a lot to be said for that twelve-fifteen train.

It was but a passing weakness. The thought of N___ soon strengthened him once more. He had invited her to the picnic, and he intended to keep the tryst even if it meant having to run like a rabbit every time O___ hove in sight. After all, he reflected, it was most improbable that a big heavy fellow like that would be able to catch him.

His frame of mind, in short, was precisely that of the old Crusading P___s [L___'s family name] when they heard that the Paynim had been sighted in the offing.

Extra credit: Whose ancestor, writing home to his wife to tell her how he had been unhorsed at the Battle of Joppa, said: "Ytte was suche a dam near squeake as I never wante to have agayne in a month of Sundays. E'en now am I sweatinge atte every pore, and meseems I hardlie knowe if I stande on ye head or ye heels."

Round 290 - 13 October 2006

Milk

No, this quiz is not about the m. of human kindness, but about the nutrient fluid produced by the mammary glands of the cow. For while the Master's prose seems to deal exclusively with idle young men swilling stiff whisky-and-sodas and butlers sipping port in their pantry, it is not without a small number of oddballs who swear by their refreshing glass of milk. Please identify the following milk lovers and/or specialists.

1. "It's all right, A___ o' man. I am coming to B___."

"You are?"

"Yessir, I can't get there quick enough. And I should be glad if, while I am in residence, you would see that no alcoholic fluid of any description is served to me. I mean this, A___ o' man. I have seen the light." He paused for a moment with a quick shudder, remembering what else he had seen. "And now excuse me. I have to go and look at the ducks on the Serpentine."

"Why do you want to look at the ducks on the Serpentine?"

"There are moments in a man's life, A___ o' fellow," said C___ gravely, "when he has got to look at the ducks on the Serpentine. And about that luch of ours. Cancel it. I'm going to lunch quietly at Barribault's on a rusk and a glass of milk."

2. "Go on talking."

"About milk?"

D___ nodded.

"Yes," she said. "I never knew it could be so exciting. Do you get your milk from contented cows?"

"They've never complained to me yet," said E___. He placed his finger on the paper. "See that thing? The sterilizer!"

"Wonderful," said D___.

"That's the boiler there. At seventy degrees centigrade the obligatory and optional bacteria are destroyed."

"Serve them right!" said D___. She looked at him with almost uncontrollable excitement.

"Do you mean seriously to tell me," she asked, "that you are familiar with the bacteria of milk?"

"Of course I am."

D___'s eyes danced delightedly.

"But this is extraordinary!" she cried.

3. However, you cannot pick and choose when you are in need of a solicitor, you have to go to the man who knows his law, and F___ had implicit faith in G___'s legal acumen. He would have preferred not to ask him to lunch, but time pressed, for owing to his sessions with H___ and J___ he had allowed a great deal of unfinished business to accumulate on his desk. So he issued the invitation, and in due course G___ appeared.

"Very fortunate you caught me in time, my dear F___," he said. "I was just going out for my glass of milk when you telephoned. I always take a glass of milk at this hour, sipping it slowly."

4. "He's a very brilliant man," said K___, and swept from the room, banging the door behind her.

"His last play ran nine months in London," she added, re-opening and re-banging the door.

"And a year in New York," she said, opening the door again and closing it with perhaps the loudest bang of the series.

L___ was not a patient man. He resented the spectacle of a daughter behaving like a cuckoo in a cuckoo clock. When the door opened once more a moment later, he was all ready with a blistering reproof, and was on the point of delivering it when he perceived that this was not his child playing a return date, but a godlike figure, with short side-whiskers, that carried a glass of malted milk on a salver. One of L___'s numerous grievances against his daughter M___ was the fact that she made him drink a glass of malted milk every morning, and this was N___, the butler, bringing it.

5. O___ spoke. Her voice shook.

"P___!"

"Hullo?"

"Is this true what Q___ has been saying about R___?"

"What did he say?"

"That R___ sang under his window and threw eggs at him?"

"Perfectly correct. I was an eyewitness."

S___ swelled formidably.

"I shall write R___ a very strong letter tomorrow. In the third person. He shall never enter this house again... There! I'm sure that was a moan. I wonder if the garden is haunted."

She turned away, and P___ regarded her anxiously.

"You aren't going to the hothouse?"

"I am going to my room. Bring me a glass of warm milk, Q___."

"Very good, madam."