Limericks

The limerick packs laugh anatomical
Into space that is quite economical
But the good ones we've seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

Not my own. Shakespeare's, I believe. Anyhow, can you identify the following (would-be) tellers of limericks?

1. The passing of the storm had left A___ at rather a loose end. He was not quite sure where he wanted to go or what he wanted to do. His favourite lawn, he knew, would be too wet to walk on, his favourite deck-chair too wet to sit in. The whole world out of doors, in fact, for all that the sun was shining so brightly, was much too moist and dripping to attract a man with his feline dislike of dampness.

(...) Eventually, he had drifted to the hall, and was now lounging on a settee there in the hope that, if he lounged long enough, somebody would come along with whom he might chat till it was time to dress for dinner. He always found this part of the evening a little depressing.

Up to the present, he had had no luck. B___ had come downstairs, but after C___'s revelations he had no wish to do anything but glower sternly at B___. Without attempting to draw him into conversation, though he had just remembered a thirty-year-old Limerick which he would have liked to recite to someone, he watched him go into the billiard-room ...

2. The cab made a noise like an explosion in a boiler factory and began to move. There was a momentary silence in its interior, occupied by D___ in wondering what business this dubious character, whose fishiness his practised eye had detected at a glance, could have to conduct with E___; by F___ in massaging the small of his back. For a long time now the heavy underclothing on which his loved one had insisted had been irking him.

(...)

"You have a sensitive skin?"

"Yes, I have. Very."

"I suspected that that was the reason why you were behaving like a one-armed paperhanger with the hives. Watching you at work, I was reminded of the young lady of Natchez, whose clothes were all tatters and patches. In alluding to which, she would say, 'Well, Ah itch, and wherever Ah itches, Ah scratches'. If you wish to undress, pay no attention to me. And G___, I know, is a married man and will take the broad view."

3. "I believe that if you were married and settled down, things might brighten considerably all around. I've known bigger ... well, no, scarcely that, perhaps ... I've known very nearly as big fools as you improve out of all recognition by marriage. And here is what I wanted to talk to you about. You will, no doubt, have been wondering why I am buying you a lunch in an infernally expensive place like this. I will tell you. My old friend, H___, is joining us in a few minutes with her daughter J___. I have decided that she is the girl you shall marry. Excellent family, plenty of money of her own, and sense enough for two – which is just the right amount. So mind you make yourself attractive, if that is humanly possible, to J___."

A weary, mirthless smile twisted K___'s lips.

"All this –", he began.

"And let me give you a warning. She is not one of your fast modern girls, so bear in mind when conversing with her that you are not in the smoking-room of the Drones Club. Only carefully selected stories, and no Limericks whatsoever."

4. "He did his best, Father."

"No man could have done more," agreed L___ cordially. "The way he upset those buckets and kept getting entangled in people's legs. Very shrewd. It thrilled me to see him. I don't know when I've met a young fellow I liked and respected more. And what if he is a poet? Poets are all right. Why, dash it, I'm a poet myself. At the last dinner of the Loyal Sons of M___ [name of a county] I composed a poem which, let me tell you, was pretty generally admired. I read it out to the boys over the port, and they cheered me to the echo. It was about a young lady of Bewdley, who sometimes behaved rather rudely ..."

"Not before Mother, Father."

Round 302 - 21 January 2007

Day By Day, In Every Way

Wodehouse was a man of regular habits. Unsurprisingly, some of his characters are, too. Whose daily routine is described in the following fragments?

1. Every day he rose punctually at eight-thirty and, having shaved, bathed and gone through the complicated system of physical jerks which kept his stocky body in such excellent repair, breakfasted with his wife in her sitting-room. At ten-thirty he interviewed A___. The rest of the morning and the early afternoon he devoted to avoiding the paying guests. Between five and seven, he took the dogs for a run.

2. Here, I mean to say, was one of those solid business men who are America's pride, whose lives are as regular and placid as that of a bug in a rug. On my visits to New York I had met dozens of them, so I could envisage without difficulty a typical B___ day.

Up in the morning bright and early at his Long Island home. The bath. The shave. The eggs. The cereal. The coffee. The drive to the station. The 8.15. The cigar. The New York Times. The arrival at the Pennsylvania terminus. The morning's work. The lunch. The afternoon's work. The cocktail. The 5.50. The drive from the station. The return home. The kiss for the wife and tots, the pat for the welcoming dog. The shower. The change into something loose. The well-earned dinner. The quiet evening. Bed.

That was the year in, year out routine of a man like B___, Sundays and holidays excepted, and it was one ill calculated to fit him for the raw excitements and jungle conditions of C___.

3. Every morning he had his breakfast at eight, smoked a cigarette, and walked to the Underground. At five he left the bank, and at six he arrived home, for it was his practice to walk the first two miles of the way, breathing deeply and regularly. Then dinner. Then the quiet evening. Sometimes the moving-pictures, but generally the quiet evening, he reading the Encyclopaedia – aloud now – D___ darning his socks, but never ceasing to listen.

4. "He rises at six-thirty, and at seven is having coffee and buttered toast. At eight, he breakfasts off porridge, cream, eggs, bacon, jam, bread, butter, more eggs, more bacon, more jam, more tea, and more butter, finishing up with a slice of cold ham and a sardine. At eleven o'clock he has his 'elevenses', consisting of coffee, cream, more bread and more butter. At one, luncheon – a hearty meal, replete with every form of starchy food and lots of beer. If he can get at the port, he has port. At three, a snack. At four, another snack. At five, tea and buttered toast. At seven – dinner, probably with floury potatoes, and certainly with lots more beer. At nine, another snack. And at ten-thirty he retires to bed, taking with him a glass of milk and a plate of biscuits to keep himself from getting hungry in the night. And yet he remains as slender as a string-bean, while I, who have been dieting for years, tip the beam at two hundred and seventeen pounds, and am growing a third and supplementary chin."

Round 303 - 1 February 2007

The Alarming Spread of Poetry

"To the thinking man there are few things more disturbing than the realisation that we are becoming a nation of minor poets", Wodehouse wrote in one of his early articles. Previous quizzes have dealt with professional poets, i.e. those who consciously and deliberately indulge in this revolting activity. In this round we examine five representatives of the human race, who appear to be perfectly good eggs, until, without so much as blowing their horn first, they suddenly break into poetry ...

1. "A___," I said, wiping the brow and gasping like a stranded goldfish, "it's beastly hot."

"The weather is oppressive, sir."

"Not all the soda, A___."

"No, sir."

"I think we've had about enough of the metrop. for the time being, and require a change. Shift-ho, I think, A___, what?"

"Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir."

"By Jove, A___, that was practically poetry. Rhymed, did you notice?"

2. "Golly, B___," 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."

3. "Can't you get some from your aunt?"

"Not a cent. She is one of those women who simply do not disgorge. All her surplus cash is devoted to adding to her collection of mouldy snuff-boxes. When I look at those snuff-boxes and reflect that any single one of them, judiciously put up the spout, would set my feet on the road to Fortune, only my innate sense of honesty keeps me from pinching them."

"You mean they're locked up?"

"It's hard, laddie. Very hard and bitter and ironical. She buys me suits. She buys me hats. She buys me boots. She buys me spats."

4. But now, with this second, soul-stirring epistle, he had redeemed himself. It was with glowing eyes that she read it, and with tripping feet that she hurried to the telephone. She rang up the C___ [name of inn], and was answered by its proprietor. And some rough indication of the state of her feelings may be gathered from the fact that D___'s voice, though husky from years of drinking port in his pantry in the service of E___, sounded to her like beautiful music.

"Oh, D___, this is F___."

"Good afternoon, miss."

"Good afternoon. I want to speak to G___," said F___, suitably, considering her emotion, abandoning prose and breaking into poetry.

5. H___ had discovered J___'s and K___'s absence about five minutes after they had left the building. Ever since then, he had been popping out of his lair at intervals of three minutes, to see whether they had returned. Constant disappointment in this respect had rendered him decidedly jumpy. When J___ and K___ reached the desk, he was a kind of human sodawater bottle. He fizzed over with questions, reproofs, and warnings.

"What does it mean? What does it mean?" he cried. "Where have you been? Where have you been?"

"Poetry," said J___ approvingly.

Round 304 - 10 February 2007

Postcards

Who is at the sending and who at the receiving end of the postcards in questions 1, 2, 4 and 5? And what is the name of the Stately Home of E in question 3?

1. Two days later I got a card from A___.

"... The weather," it ended, "continues fine. I have had one exceedingly enjoyable bathe."

I gave one of those hollow, mirthless laughs, and went downstairs to join B___. I had an appointment with her in the drawing-room. She was going to read Ruskin to me.

2. It was a picture postcard, one of those brightly coloured picture postcards at which we of the intelligentsia click our tongues, but which afford pleasure and entertainment to quite a number of the lower-browed. It represented a nude lady, presumably Venus, rising from the waves at a seashore resort with a cheery "I'm in the pink, kid" coming out of her mouth in the form of a balloon, and beneath this figure, in a bold feminine hand, were the words "Hey, hey, today's the day, what, what? Many happy returns, old dear. Love and kisses. C___."

It puzzled D___, as it might have puzzled an even deeper thinker. To the best of his knowledge he was not acquainted with any C___, let alone one capable of this almost Oriental warmth of feeling.

3. Arriving at the post office and finding the telegram window occupied by a man in a bowler hat, he had filled in the time of waiting by looking through the picture postcards on the other side of the shop, and among these he had found a coloured presentation of E___. His initial emotion, like that of everybody who saw E___ for the first time, was one of shock. In spite of F___'s warning he had not been prepared for anything quite so hideous. It had obviously been designed by an architect steeped to the tonsils in spirituous liquor, as so many architects were in the days of the Regency.

4. Having ushered G___ courteously to the door and assured her that he would fly to her side the moment he received her summons, he sat down at his desk and resumed the study of the picture postcard he had been brooding on when she arrived. It presented a charming picture of the Croisette at Cannes; it was signed "H___ and J___", and it bore the words in a flowing feminine hand "Having wonderful time. Glad you're not here."

5. "It's preposterous!" cried K___. "I have never heard such rot. Let's just slip off and get married quietly and send her a picture postcard from Venice or somewhere, with a cross and a 'This is our room. Wish you were with us' on it."

The girl shuddered.

"She would be with us," she said. "You don't know mother. The moment she got that postcard, she would come over to wherever we were and put you across her knee and spank you with a hair-brush. I don't think I could ever feel the same towards you if I saw you lying across mother's knee, being spanked with a hair-brush. It would spoil the honeymoon."

Round 305 - 19 February 2007

AB cases

"Couldn't you make an AB case out of it?" suggested Ashe Marson to Freddie Threepwood in Something Fresh.

"Maybe I could if I knew what an AB case was."

"Call the people mixed up in it A and B."

"And forget half-way through who was which!..."

Quizmasters and quizmistresses in this space have been using A and B as placeholders for years now. Wodehouse made AB cases of many things. Identify who was which below, or cite the source where which and who are not so clear.

1. "I can't mention names. You see what I mean?"

"I understand you perfectly, sir. You would prefer to term the protagonists A and B."

"Or North and South?"

"A and B is more customary, sir."

"Just as you say. Well, A is male, B female. You follow me so far?"

"You have been lucidity itself, sir."

"And owing to ... what's that something of circumstances you hear people talking about? Cats enter into it, if I remember rightly."

"Would concatenation be the word for which you are groping?"

"That's it. Owing to a concatenation of circumstances B has got it into her nut that A's in love with her. But he isn't. Still following?"

"Yes, sir."

I had to pause here for a moment to marshal my thoughts. Having done so, I proceeded.

"Now until recently B was engaged to –––"

"Shall we call him C, sir?"

"Caesar's as good a name as any, I suppose. Well, as I was saying, until quite recently B was engaged to Caesar ..."

2. "... Thus, while A is waving his hat and giving a series of rousing cheers, we see B frowning dubiously. And the same is true of X and Y. Take this romance of _____'s for instance. I was hoping he would marry another girl, a particular protégé of mine whom I have watched grow from a child, and a singularly fascinating child, at that ..."

3. "I can mention no names, of course ..."

"I don't expect you to."

"Then I will simply say that A, to whom the necklace belongs, is shortly about to be married to B."

"I might have know it. Doing all those bridge problems together, they kind of got fond of one another."

"I have my reasons for thinking that the wedding will take place down at Hempstead on Long Island, where C, A's stepmother, has her summer home."

"Why? Why not in New York?"

"Because," said ____ simply, "I expressed a wish that it should take place in New York."

"What have you got to do with it?"

"I am D, C's husband."

"Oh, the fellow who could fill a tank with water in six hours fifteen minutes while C was filling another in five hours forty-five? Pleased to meet you."

4. ... ___, gazing at the girl at the far end of the row in which he sat, became more convinced than ever that the odd illusion of having been struck on the frontal bone by an atom bomb, experienced by him on his initial glimpse of her, had been due to love at first sight. It happens that way sometimes. A's love for B, or for that matter, C's love for D, often requiring long months before it comes to the boil, can occasionally start functioning with the sudden abruptness of one of those explosions in London street which slay six. There seems to be no fixed rule.

5. You know how it is, as a rule when you want to get Chappie A on Spot B at exactly the same moment when Chappie C is on Spot D. There's always a chance of a hitch.

Two Extra Credit Opportunities:

Who said he didn't know what an AB Case was, but that it was from a book of Stevenson's?

If A=27, B=28 until K=10 is reached, when K becomes one instead of 10, what is the logical conclusion, and why?

Round 306 - 5 March 2007

Methods of voice production

"I don't want to seem always to be criticizing your methods of voice production, Jeeves," I said, "but I must inform you that that 'Well, sir' of yours is in many respects fully as unpleasant as your 'Indeed, sir?' Like the latter, it seems to be tinged with a definite scepticism. It suggests a lack of faith in my vision. The impression I retain after hearing you shoot it at me a couple of times is that you consider me to be talking through the back of my neck, and that only a feudal sense of what is fitting restrains you from substituting for it the words 'Says you!'"

– Right Ho, Jeeves

Identify the producers of the various voices described below.

1. "Why do you say "__A__" like that?"

"Because it's the only way to say it."

"Well, let me tell you I resent your saying "__A__" as if you were mentioning the name of some particularly unpleasant disease."

"That is the way I shall go on saying "__A__".

I bowed stiffly.

"Oh, right ho," I said. "Please yourself. After all, your methods of voice production are your own affair. And now, as I observe my hostess approaching, I will beetle along and pay my respects. This will leave you at liberty to go off into a corner by yourself and say "__A__", if you so desire, till the party is over and they lock up the house and put the cat out."

2. I went on shouting. I was in good voice that day. I shouted "Hi!"; I shouted "Here!"; I shouted "Help!"; I also shouted in a broad, general way. It was a performance which should have received more than a word of grateful thanks. But all __B_ said, when I paused for breath, was:

"Don't whisper!"

I nursed my aching vocal chords in a wounded silence.

"Help!" cried __B__.

Considered as a shout, it was not in the same class as mine. It lacked body, vim, and even timbre.But, by that curious irony which governs human affairs, it produced results.

3. For the voice was a voice in a million, a voice that cast a spell and wooed the ear to listen, a voice that stole into a man's heart and stirred him up as with a ten-foot pole. He had never in his life heard anything that made so instant an appeal to him, and strange thrills ran up his spine and out at the roots of his hair.

[two pages later he encounters the voice again]

What had congealed __C__ where he stood had not been the words themselves but the voice that had spoken them. He refused to believe that in a smallish city like London there could co-exist two such magic voices.

4. When she spoke, it was in a low thrilling voice, almost inaudible but packed with a wealth of pent-up feeling. It reminded __D__ of the voice of a Welsh forward, on whose head he had sat one muddy afternoon at Cardiff Arms Park.

"Are you mad, __D__?"

The question was one to which a direct answer was difficult. __D__ decided to strike the soothing note.

"I think I know what you mean," he said. "You're referring to the Case, aren't you? I thought you might want to hear all about that. Come along in, and we'll have a long talk about it over a cup of tea."

"I don't want any tea."

"There are rock cakes."

Extra credit: Who had a hoarse and muffled voice as a result of overuse calling the odds in his career as a silver ring bookie?

Round 307 - 13 March 2007

Sheep on Misty Mountains
Methods of Voice Production II, mostly about sheep

1. I had seen __A__ in and about the clubhouse ... for some time before I made his acquaintance, and there was something in his manner which suggested that sooner or later he would be seeking me out and telling me the story of his life. For some reason, possibly because I have white whiskers, I seem to act on men with stories of their lives to tell like catnip on cats. And sure enough, I was sitting on this terrace on evening, enjoying a quiet gin-and-ginger, when he sidled up, coughed once or twice like a sheep with bronchitis and gave me the works.

2. "I don't know how to begin."

"Eh?" I said. "Is anything up?"

"Poor ___B__ – it was my fault – I ought never to have let him go there alone."

At this point __X__, who had been standing by wrapped in the silence, gave a little cough, like a sheep caught in the mist on a mountain-top.

3. All the nausea and loathing which had been accumulating in __C__ since this man's entry to the room came to a head. He would have given much to be able to substitute for his customary bleat the organ tones of his brother__D__, but he did his best with what he had.

"I forbid you to go near _E__'s suite," he came as close to thundering as his vocal cords would allow. "Get out!"

4. But in assuming that in the great open spaces he would be alone, he was mistaken. Scarcely had he reached them when a voice that might have been that of an ancient sheep spoke at his elbow.

"Well met by moonlight, __F__," it bleated, and spinning on his axis he perceived ____.

"Oh, hullo," he said, when able to articulate. "Nice morning, isn't it? The sun and all that. Well, goodbye."

"Let us not utter that sad word," said __G__. "Are you on your way to [...]? I will walk with you."

5. These were not easy questions to answer, and the best _H_ could do was to shuffle his feet and say "Oh, ah."

"Well, anyway, " he said, after a rather painful pause, changing the subject and getting back to the res, "would you mind signing this warrant?"

"Warrant? What warrant?" What's it all about? What's all this nonsense about warrants?"

There was a sound in the background like a distant sheep coughing gently on a mountainside. __J__sailing into action.

Extra Credit on a different farm animal: Who, when asked to render an opinion, made a noise like pig swallowing half a cabbage?

Round 308 - 22 March 2007

Sheep and sheep analogies

Last week we considered sounds that brought sheep to mind. Now let's look at some other sheep-y references.

1. Most people, meeting __A__, were struck by his remarkable resemblance to a sheep, but if they could have seen him now as he strode to the telephone and dialed, they would have realized that this was no ordinary run-of-the-mill sheep they were looking at, but a keen, brisk, alert sheep, the sort of sheep that knows all about drive and push and has been trained to develop its initiative.

"_____ Hotel?" he said curtly. "Put me through to __B__'s suite."

2. There was respectful benevolence in __C__'s eye. A shepherd, inspecting a lost sheep which he had always regarded as a social superior, would have looked the same. The decision of __D__ to run up to London for a couple of weeks had met with __C__'s unqualified approval. He had had much to endure since __E__'s departure from _(name of house)__, and he had longed to see him again and confide his troubles to him.

Observing that a meal was in progress, he dropped with smooth efficiency into his lifelong role. Advancing to the table without further words, he picked up the bottle, looked at the label, winced, and poured wine into the glasses. This done, he took up his stand in a professional attitude behind __E__'s chair.

3. __F__ bit her lip. She was piqued. She felt as if she had patted the head of a pet lamb, and the lamb had turned and bitten her in the finger.

"I said, 'Good shot, partner!' " she repeated coldly.

"Yes," said __G__, "but don't talk. It prevents one concentrating." He turned to __H__. "And don't let me have to tell you that again!" he said.

"__H__ has been like a mouse!"

"That is what I complain of," said __G__. "Mice make a beastly scratching sound ..."

4. ... just a slim, slight girl with a tip-tilted nose. And yet she had taken this formidable magnifico in her stride, kicked him lightly in the face, and passed on. He sat down, thrilled with a worshipping admiration.

__J__, as always happened after one of her little spurts of irritability, was apologetic.

"Sorry I bit your head off, __K__," she said. "It was a shame, after you had come all this way just to see an old friend. But it makes me so angry when you're meek and sheep-y and let people trample on you. Still I suppose it's not your fault." She smiled across at him. "You always were a slow, good-natured old thing, weren't you, like one of those big dogs that come and bump their head on your lap and snuffle ...".

5. It was with bowed head and the feeling that the curse had come upon me that I proceeded to my room. __L__ was there, studding the shirt, and I lost no time in giving him the low-down. My attitude toward __L__ on these occasions is always that of a lost sheep getting together with its shepherd.

"__L__," I said, "you remember me telling you in the car that I was weighed down with a nameless foreboding?"

Extra Credit, possibly treacherous but not particularly sheepish:

Which of these tales in nature and nurture differs by several parasangs from the other four?Submit your answer including justification and documentary evidence. Two answers at least are acceptable for full credit; be creative.

the recounting of:
1. Gussie's presentation of school prizes
2. Jeeves' encouragement of a member of the aristocracy to assault a
policeman
3. The cook Anatole and the unwelcome birthday present
4. Jeeves' experiences as a caddy
5. Jeeves as reviewer of nightclubs

Round 309 - 31 March 2007

Household Furniture – Clocks

Let’s begin with a quiz left over from the winter series on household furniture.

1. The room was in blackness. The house was still. All was well. With the feeling of a life-prisoner emerging from the Bastille, he began to crawl stiffly forward; and it was just then that the first of the disturbing events occurred which were to make this night memorable to him. Something like a rattlesnake suddenly went off with a whirr, and his head, jerking up, collided with the piano. It was only the cuckoo clock, which now, having cleared its throat as was its custom before striking, proceeded to cuck eleven times in rapid succession before subsiding with another rattle; but to __(A)__ it sounded like the end of the world.

He sat in the darkness, massaging his bruised skull. His hours of imprisonment in the cupboard had had a bad effect on his nervous system, and he vacillated between tears of weakness and a militant desire to get at that cuckoo clock with a hatchet. He felt that it had done it on purpose and was now chuckling to itself in fancied security. For quite a minute he raged silently, and any cuckoo clock which had strayed within his reach would have had a bad time of it.

2. It was fairly dim down there, but I could see pretty well, because there was an oil-lamp burning on the mantelpiece. By its light I was able to observe that the sofa had been upset, the two chairs thrown through the window, and the stuffed bird-cases smashed; and at the moment of going to press, a shadowy form was in the far corner, wrestling with the grandfather clock.

It is difficult to say with any certainty which of the pair was getting the better of it. If in sporting vein, I think I should have been inclined to put my money on the clock. (…) Then, suddenly, his eye fell on me, and he broke away and stood staring. The clock, after rocking to and fro for a moment, settled into the perpendicular with a jerk and, having struck thirteen, relapsed into silence.

3. I had been heaved out of the old home by __(C)__ many a time before, so it wasn’t as if I wasn’t used to it; but I had never got the boot quite so suddenly before and so completely out of a blue sky. Usually when __(C)__ bungs me out on my ear, it is possible to see it coming days ahead.

“I might have guessed that something like this would happen,” she said.

And then all things were made plain. She had found out about the clock. (…) Falling in love (…) as I had done and needing a quid or two for current expenses, I had had to rely on my native ingenuity and resource. It was absolutely imperative that I should give the girl a few flowers and chocolates from time to time, and this runs into money. So, seeing a rather juicy clock doing nothing on the mantelpiece of the spare bedroom, I had sneaked it off under my coat and put it up on the spout at the local pawnbroker’s. And now, apparently, in some devious and underhand manner she had discovered this.

4. (For a bonus point, the clock incident in the above question was recalled in a later story, when further details were supplied about the variety of timepiece that had been pawned)

I was sorry to be informed by [the butler] on my arrival that she was in bed with a nasty cold but (…) I went up and found her sniffing eucalyptus and sneezing a good deal, plainly in rather poor shape. But her sufferings had not impaired her spirit, for the first thing she said to me was that she wouldn’t give me a penny, and I was pained to see that the matter of the (____) clock still rankled. What (____) clock? Oh, just one which, needing a bit of capital at the time, I pinched from one of the spare rooms, little thinking that its absence would ever be noticed.

5. (...) there came, muffled by distance, the sound of a shot. It drew from the Superintendent an agitated “Coo!” He dashed from the room, as far as it was possible for a man of his build to dash and __(D)__ followed him at a stately amble. __(E)__ sank back in his chair with his eyes closed. Over in the corner the grandfather clock was striking twelve.

6. Peace stole into __(F)__’s heart as she watched the boats dropping slowly down the East River, which gleamed like dull steel through the haze. She had come to Journey’s End, and she was happy. Trouble and heartache seemed as distant as those hurrying black ants down on the streets. She felt far away from the world on an enduring mountain of rest. She gave a little sigh of contentment and turned to go in as __(G)__ called.

In the sitting-room her feeling of security deepened. Here, the world was farther away than ever. Even the faint noises which had risen to the roof were inaudible, and only the cosy tick-tock of the grandfather’s clock punctuated the stillness.

She looked at __(G)__ with a quickening sense of affection. He had the divine gift of silence at the right time. Yes, this was home. This was where she belonged.

Round 310 - 9 April 2007

Wise Old Sayings

Our topic this week consists of proverbs, bromides, saws, maxims. In fact wise old sayings, along the lines of the ones that occurred to Montrose Mulliner (“Gorillas never forget” and “A banana a day keeps the gorilla away”) at a critical moment in his life.

Your task this week is to identify the speakers of the wise old sayings in the following examples. (The author Wodehouse assumes his readers won’t have any trouble identifying the wise old saying that was referred to but not quoted in the third example.)

1. “I was not to be moved. I remained firm. (…) She huffed and puffed, as you heard, but she might have known that argument would be bootless. As the wise old saying has it, you can take a horse to the water, but you can’t make it play Santa Claus.”

2. “I scored heavily at the end of the visit. She’d got to the quoting proverbs stage by that time. ‘Ah, my dear,’ she said to __(A)__. ‘Marry in haste, repent at leisure.’ __(A)__ stood up to her like a little brick. ‘I’m afraid that proverb doesn’t apply to me, Aunt __(B)___,’ she said, ‘because I haven’t repented!’ What do you think of that, Laddie?”

“Of course, she hasn’t had much leisure lately,” I agreed.

__(C)__’s jaw dropped slightly. But he rallied swiftly.

“Idiot! That wasn’t what she meant. __(A)__’s an angel!”

3. In the sleuth hound of 6 Wilbraham Place, Sloane Square, however, he speedily discovered that he had come up against one of the Untouchables, a man to whom even Oofy Prosser, that outstanding non-parter, would have felt compelled to raise his hat. Beginning by quoting from Polonius’ speech to Laertes, which a surprising number of people whom you would not have suspected of familiarity with the writings of Shakespeare seem to know, Mr __(D)__ had gone on to say that lending money always made him feel as if he were rubbing velvet the wrong way, and that in any case he would not lend it to __(E)__, because he valued his friendship too highly. The surest method of creating a rift between two pals, explained Mr __(D)__, was for one pal to place the other pal under a financial obligation.

4. __(E)__ fingered his Drones Club tie. Mr __(F)__’s eloquence had stirred him deeply, but he could not forget that good thing of his Uncle __(G)__’s which he had heard so often both as a boy and when grown to manhood. ’Look before you leap,’ his Uncle __(G)__ had been fond of saying, for he was a neat phrase-maker.

(…and one chapter later…) __(E)__ continued to hesitate. (…) When he closed his eyes, as he now did, he seemed to see his Uncle __(G)__ standing warming his ample trouser-seat at the fire in the library at home, fixing him with a fishy gaze and coming through with that look-before-you-leap sequence which was so often on his lips. Useless to attempt to conceal from himself that Uncle __(G)__ would take a very pale view of what was going on in the office of __(name of company)__.

(…and one page after that…) __(E)__ ceased to hesitate. Faintly, as from a great distance, he could still hear Uncle __(G)__’s warning voice, but he had no leisure to listen to Uncle __(G)__ now. With a firm hand he signed the cheque, and Mr __(F)__ jumped at it like a trout leaping at a fly.

“It’s wet,” said __(E)__.

“I’ll dry it (…),” said Mr __(F)__, “you’re a partner now.”

5. “Now there happens to be among my effects a block of Smelly River Ordinaries, probably the most valuable share on the market, and I think I could let you have fifty thousand pounds' worth of them, as you are – may I say? – a personal friend.”

(…)

“I say! That sounds smashing! But are you sure you can spare them? Won’t you be losing money?”

“When you get to my age, my boy, you will realise that money is not everything in life. As somebody once said, ’I expect to pass through this world but once. Any good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to a fellow creature, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.’ Sign here,” said ___(H)___, producing from an inner pocket a number of stock certificates, a blank cheque, a fountain pen and a piece of blotting paper.