Something Fishy Preferred

This week's quiz has a certain suggestion of the piscine. If you wish to increase your brain power in preparation for it, eat plenty of fish.

Name the speakers. (To receive full credit on #3, you must also name the novel or story from which the passage comes.)

1. "I fancy, sir," said A__ respectfully, "that the animals may have become somewhat exhilarated as the result of having discovered the fish under Mr. B__'s bed."

C__ tottered.

"Fish! Did I hear you rightly?"

"Sir?"

"Did you say that there was a fish under Mr B__'s bed?"

"Yes, sir."

C__ gave a low moan, and reached for his hat and stick.

2. D__ was inspecting her plate of hors d'oeuvres, conscious, when it was too late, as everybody is, that she had made the wrong choice.

"Don't you always feel," she said, "that what you really want is just sardines?"

"I thought I had made it abundantly clear that I wanted you." ...

"I promised mother I would never marry a man I had only known five minutes."

"More like twenty, surely."

"Well, even twenty."

"You're upsetting all my plans."

"I'm sorry. But you do realise, don't you, that we are practically strangers?"

"Girls often employ that apparently specious argument on a man. Only to discover later that he was a tadpole and they were a fish in the Palaeozoic Age. Then they look silly."

3. "You want to catch a tarpon, do you not?"

"I confess that it is my ambition, sir."

I sighed. It wasn't so much that it pained to me to think of some tarpon, perhaps a wife and mother, being jerked from the society of its loved ones on the end of a hook. What gashed me like a knife was the thought of missing the Drones Club Darts Tournament, for which I would have been a snip this year. ...

"Heaven help the tarpon that tries to pit its feeble cunning against you, E__," I said. "Its efforts will be bootless."

4. "All the same, I could see, if you don't mind me saying so, old man, that she felt you might have behaved with a little more tact."

"Tact!"

"And I must admit I rather agreed with her. Was it nice, F__, was it quite kind to take the bloom off G__'s shark like that? You must remember that G__'s shark is very dear to her. Could you not see what a sock on the jaw it would be for the poor child to hear it described by the man to whom she had given her heart as a flatfish?" ...

"You don't suppose," said F__, with rising vehemence, "that I would have exposed this dashed synthetic shark for the flatfish it undoubtedly was if there had not been causes that led up to it."

5. "I give you fair warning that, if he tells me I have a face like a fish, I shall clump his head." ...

"Then you'll simply ruin the whole thing."

"I don't care. We H__s have our pride"

"Perhaps the young gentleman will not notice that you have a face like a fish, sir," suggested J__.

"Ah! There's that, of course."

"But we can't trust to luck," said K__. "It's probably the first thing he will notice."

Extra Credit: Who was once slapped in the eye with a wet fish during a religious argument with a fishmonger?

Round 332 - 18 October 2007

Wasps

1. One is inclined to describe this wasp as the Wasp of Fate. Only by supposing it an instrument of destiny can one account for its presence that morning in the small bar of Barribault's Hotel. Even in the country its arrival on the twelfth of May would have been unusual, the official wasping season not beginning till well on in July. ...

It then settled down for a brief breather on the back of A__'s coat, and B__, feeling that this was an opportunity which might not occur again, remembered his swashing blow, like Gregory in Romeo and Juliet, and downed it in its tracks with a large, flat hand.

A buffet between the shoulder blades does something to a man who is drinking a cocktail at the moment. A__ choked and turned purple. Recovering his breath, he said (with some justice): "Hey!" and B__ hastened to explain. He said:

"Wasp."

"Wasp?"

"Wasp," repeated B__, and with a pointing finger directed the other's attention to the remains. "Wasp," he added, driving the thing home.

A__ viewed the body, and all doubt concerning the purity of his preserver’s motives left him.

“Wasp,” he said, fully concurring.

“Wasp,” said B__, summing the thing up rather neatly.

2. Then his vigil was enlivened by a wasp, which stung him on the back of his hand. He was leaping to and fro, licking his wounds, when he perceived the girl of his dreams coming down the path.

"Ah!" cried C__.

He ceased to leap and, rushing forward, would have clasped her in a fond embrace. Many people advocate the old-fashioned blue-bag for wasp-stings, but C__ preferred this treatment. ...

"I say," he said, "I've just been stung by a beastly great wasp."

"Good!" said D__.

3. "Good game."

"Very. Exciting."

"Wasps are a nuisance, though."

"Wasps?"

"Wasps."

"What wasps?"

"I don't know their names. The wasps around here."

"No wasps around here."

"Yes."

"Not in the pavilion at Lord's. You can't get in unless you're a member."

4. "So you have not had to pay anything for the E__?"

"Not a bean."

"Then you ought to have let me have it cheaper."

"You think so, do you? Well, let me tell you, F__," said G__, who had been deeply offended by his companion's remark about old fools, "that my price for that E__ has gone up. It's three thousand pounds now."

"What!"

"That's what it is. Three thousand pounds."

A sudden hush seemed to have fallen on the garden of H__ [name of place]. It was as though it and everything in it had been stunned into silence. Birds stopped chirping. Butterflies froze in mid-flutter. Wasps wading in strawberry jam paused motionless, as if they were having their photographs taken.

5. "A lot of wasps there are about this summer," he said. "One sang right past my ear just then."

"I wish it had bitten you," said J__.

"Wasps," said K__, who dabbled in natural history, "do not bite. They sting. You are thinking of snakes."

"Your society would make anyone think of snakes."

Extra Credit: Identify the woman in the following passage:

"I have seen her in the distance, watering the flowers in her garden, and on these occasions her stance struck me as graceful. And once, at a picnic, I observed her killing a wasp with a teaspoon, and was impressed by the freedom of the wrist action of her back-swing.”

Round 333 - 29 October 2007

Missing

Reflected a great thinker in "The Man Who Disliked Cats": 'I have thought to myself where is lost cat most likely to be? And I have answered, "In the Cats' House".'

This round we consider various objects, valuable and otherwise, living and not so much, who and which turn up conspicuous by their a. Identify the items which have gone astray or are alleged to have done so and the bereaved owners in the passages below.

1. I confess that I was a bit agitated. Even though he presumably kept it under lock and key, the mere existence of such a book made one uneasy. One did not care to think what the upshot and outcome would be, were it to fall into the wrong hands. A brochure like that would be dynamite.

"Where do you keep it?"

"In my breast pocket. Here it is. Oh no, it isn't. That's funny," ...

a thing I have found in life is that from time to time, as you jog along, there occur moments which you are able to recognise immediately with the naked eye as high spots.

2. What happened was that he met the animal straying in the park, deduced from the name and address on its collar that it belonged to _A__ and took it thither at the conclusion of his stroll and restored it.

"Child's play" is the phrase which, if you happen to allude to it, _B_ will always airily dismiss this particular investigation, but _A_ could not have displayed more admiration and enthusiasm had it been the supremest masterpiece of detective work. She fawned on _B_. She invited him in to tea, consisting of buttered toast, anchovy sandwiches and two kinds of cake ...

3. "Give me my bag."

"Here you are."

_C_ was smiling as she held out her hand, but the smile faded like breath off a mirror.

"What does this mean?" she said sharply.

"Eh?" said _D_, wincing.

"This bag is empty!"

"Shouldn't it be?"

"Of course it shouldn't be. It had [sum of money] in it. Where did you find it?"

"I didn't find it. _E_ had it. She was at the table and I came up and said, 'Oh, excuse me, you don't happen by any chance to have seen a –' and then I saw she was grasping the bag. So I took it off her and went along."

4. "That lucky pig of mine."

"That – I beg your pardon?"

...

"Hunted everywhere for it and then suddenly remembered I'd had it last in the bedroom down here when I was dressing. Put it down somewheres and forgot about it."

"These lapses of memory frequently occur."

"Yeah. Well, do you think whoever's got the house now –"

"_K_," said _F_ reverently.

5. It was at this moment, when everything appeared, as_G_ would have put it, to have been cleaned up neatly and to everybody's satisfaction, that the door opened again and _H__ pottered in ...

"_J_," _H_ said, "have you seen my pig?"

... This sudden introduction of the pig motif seemed to take him into a nightmare world where nothing made sense, and for a moment everything went black. Swaying a little on his base, he said in a low whisper, "Your pig?"

Two bonus point opportunities:

A. What did Berkeley not leave behind in his room?

B. Who found a bicycle handlebar an inadequate place to conceal what?

Round 334 - 8 November 2007

Ostriches, with and without brass door knobs

Upon falling in love with her at first sight in Uncle Fred in the Springtime, Pongo Twistleton gazed at Polly Pott "like an ostrich goggling at a brass doorknob". Ostriches and perceptions of ostrich behaviour come into play frequently in the canon. Their dietary habits in particular frequently are commented upon. Identify the references below.

1. A hand on his shoulder brought _X__ with a jerk from troubled dreams. __Y_ was standing beside him. A bent, tousled _Y__, apparently in pain.

[...]

The mists of sleep rolled away from _X__. He was awake again, and became immediately helpful. These were the occasions when _X_ was a good man to have at your side. It was _X__ who suggested that _Y__ should recline in the arm-chair which he had vacated; _X_who nipped round the corner to the all-night chemist's and returned with a magic bottle guaranteed to relieve an ostrich after a surfeit of tenpenny nails; _X__ who mixed and administered the dose.

His ministrations were rewarded. Presently the agony seemed to pass. _Y__ recovered.

2. In Central Africa, where he spent a good deal of his time exploring, ostriches would bury their heads in the sand at _C_'s approach and even rhinoceroses, the most ferocious beasts in existence, frequently edged behind trees and hid till he had passed. And the moment he came into _D__'s life, __D_ realized with a sickening clearness that those rhinoceroses had known their business.

3. "It's spinach, _E_."

"Then take it away and give it to the cat. You know I hate spinach."

"But it's so good for you."

"Who says it's good for me?"

"All the doctors. It bucks you up if you haven't enough haemoglobins."

"I have plenty of haemoglobins," said _E_, testily. "More than I know what to do with."

"It's full of iron."

"Iron!" _E_'s eyebrows had drawn themselves together into a single, formidable zareba of hair. He snorted fiercely. "Iron! Do you take me for a sword-swallower? Are you under the impression that I am an ostrich, that I should browse on iron? Perhaps you would like me tuck away a few doorknobs and a couple of pairs of roller-skates? Or, a small portion of tin-tacks? Iron, forsooth!"

4. "I'll overlook it this time, but don't let it occur again." _F__ paused, listening. "Do you keep an elephant here?"

"Not that I know of. Though __G_ has often talked of buying an ostrich, if the funds will run to it. He wants to see if it will really bury its head in the sand. Why do you ask?"

"I thought I heard one coming up the stairs."

It was not an elephant, it was __G__. He burst into the room, looking – for him – quite animated.

"Hey?" he said, "What's going on in that ruddy kitchen? ..."

For a Bonus Point: Who, as a child, kept a goat that ate brass door knobs?

Round 335 - 19 November 2007

Magazines, newspapers and the like

A majority of Wodehouse characters may give the impression they rarely read more than the Sporting Times, but a great variety of publications aimed at readers of all mental ages can be found throughout the canon. Give the titles of the six periodicals referred to below, U, V, W, X, Y and Z. Omitted characters replaced with A to J don't have to be named.

1. _A_ came away, entering the High Street furtively, lest Authority should see him out of bounds, and returned to the school, where he went about his lawful occasions as if there were no such thing as chicken-pox in the world.

But all the while the microbe was getting in some unostentatious but clever work. A week later _A_ began to feel queer. He had occasional headaches, and found himself oppressed by a queer distaste for food. The professional advice of _B_, was called for, and _A_ took up his abode in the Infirmary, where he read _U_, sucked oranges, and thought of Life.

2. "My experience of American prison life has left me with no desire to repeat it."

_C_'s face cleared. This was sense.

"I see what you mean. I remember reading an article in the _V_ about the Reformed Criminal. The writer pointed out that there is nobody with such a strong bias toward honesty as the man who has just come out of prison. He said that if someone had been laid up for a year in hospital as the result of going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, the one outdoor sport in which he would be reluctant to indulge on emerging would be going over Niagara falls in a barrel. Or, putting it another way, the burned child fears the fire."

"Precisely, _C_, though the actual quotation is 'A burned child dreadeth the fire.' It occurs in Lyly's Euphues."

3. Indeed, it was only the horror of the prospect of being left indefinitely on the boat with only a piece of sacking to keep him warm that had finally nerved him to undertake the perilous journey. But in the end he had accompanied _D_, and was now in retirement in the cupboard in __E_'s study, awaiting the moment when his leader should return laden with garments. Seated in pitch darkness on a bound volume of _W_, he was hoping for the best.

4. And Fate chuckled grimly, knowing that it had only just begun having fun with _F__.

Once in every few publishing seasons there is an Event. For no apparent reason, the great heart of the Public gives a startled jump, and the Public's great purse is emptied to secure copies of some novel which has stolen into the world without advance advertising and whose only claim to recognition is that _X__ has stated in a two-line review that it is 'readable'.

5. "... one of those country houses where they take in paying guests. Plenty of them around these days. Matter of fact, there was an advertisement of one in __Y_ only last week. A place of the name of __M_. I happened to notice it because I'd heard a man I know speak of it when he was over here. __G_. English fellow. Came to play in the amateur golf championship. When he was in New York, he had a card for my club, and I saw a good deal of him. He said that if I was ever going across, I ought to stay at this place. _H_ runs it ... What's the matter? Does the name ring a bell?"

__I__'s face had lit up, as far as his type of face, the suet pudding type, is capable of lighting up.

6. "Pooh to you!" said __J_. "Oh well, I don't suppose there's a hope of opening your eyes to the realities of life, but everybody except you knows that that sort of thing is happening all the time. You read your _Z_, don't you? You've heard of Mayfair Men, haven't you? But you can talk to some people till you're blue in the face."

"Don't you go getting blue in the face. It wouldn't suit you. Oh well," said __K_, looking at his watch, "back to the old job, I suppose. You'll be round for tea tomorrow?"

The question was purely a perfunctory one. Tomorrow was _J_'s afternoon off, and on these occasions she always came to his pantry for a cosy cup of tea. To his amazement she was evasive.

Bonus Point A: Name a probable author of the article in V cited in #2 and give evidence. [Hint: the answer lies within the Wodehouse fictional universe. Whether or not the _V_ of the real world ever ran such a piece is not known to the QM]

Bonus Point B with gratuitous hint thrown in: One of the above is a magazine in which Wodehouse published stories quite frequently, as is Playboy. Name a Wodehouse character who is known to subscribe to Playboy ("regularly").

Round 336 - 29 November 2007

The Identify your Location Quiz

"He'll be functioning again in a minute," Bill Shannon said encouragingly in Ch 14 of The Old Reliable, speaking of Joe Davenport as she and her niece Kay observe him returning to consciousness after being either Mickey-Finned or hit with a bottle (accounts varied).

"Bet you ten cents I know what he'll say when he opens his eyes. 'Where am I?' "

Joe opened his eyes.

"Where am I?" he asked.

"Gimme those ten cents," said Bill.

Where might you be (or have been) if you experience/observe the conditions in #1-4? Where is the bird in #5?

1. You stand outside [name of restaurant omitted] and you can see the clock on the wall of the Law Courts down in Fleet Street.

2. As far as the eye could reach, there were dogs scratching themselves and cats scratching the furniture.

3. The days have forty-eight hours in them; you can't get to sleep at night because of the bellowing of the crickets; and you have to walk two miles for a drink and six for an evening paper.

4. On a knoll overlooking the lake there stood a little sort of imitation Greek temple, erected by [landowner's name omitted] in the days when landowners went in for little sort of imitation Greek temples on their grounds.

5. A discerning bird, flying over the grounds of the [property name omitted] and subjecting them to a bird's-eye scrutiny, would have drawn in its breath with a sharp whistle of approval at the sight of them, feeling that in investing his cash in this desirable property _A_ had acted with sturdy good sense. 'His lines are cast in pleasant places,' it would have said to itself. 'Yea, he has a goodly heritage.' The lake, spacious and picturesque, was unquestionably value for money, and in addition there were lawns, trees, flowers, tennis courts, clock-golf courses and a Summer theatre ...

For bonus points this week we offer a "find the common thread"-type and an "odd man out" puzzle (items in both lists not necessarily men, human, or animate objects).

Bonus 1. What common element ties together the following:
a. sea lions featured in the picture presented at the Tivoli based on a Wordsworth poem
b. an artiste who died of a surfeit of paste in the property room of the Bristol Coliseum
c. The vicar who tried to reunite a village community by winding up his address at the annual village sports thus: "We must not ... consider ourselves as belonging to this section of [village] or to that section of [village]. Let us get together. Let us recollect that we are all fellow-members of one united community. [village name omitted] must be looked on as a whole. And what a whole it is!"
d. the lake at Brinkley?

Bonus 2. Which of the following differs from the others in described demeanor, and how
a. Tuppy Glossop, upsetting a small table
b. the sort of young curate so common in the eighties
c. train traveller offered tea by song
d. a jellier of eels emerging from behind a settee?

Round 337 - 9 December 2007

Trappists

Welcome to a special edition of the traditional Plum's Dumb Chums quiz! This week we examine the taciturn members of the family Benedictinidae which constitute the genus Trappisticum. Your quizmaster accepts entries either by email or – if you happen to be passing through Normandy – by sign language.

1. "I tell you I saw him with my own eyes place the manuscript in the top right-hand drawer of the desk."

"Well, he must have moved it. It's not there now."

"Then it is somewhere else."

"I shouldn't wonder. But where?"

"You could easily have found out."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Don't say 'Oh, yeah'."

"Well, what can I say, dash it? First you keep yowling 'Shush' every time I open my mouth. Then you tell me not to say, 'Says you'. And now you beef at my remarking 'Oh, yeah'. I suppose what you'd really like," said A___, and it was plain to the listening ear that he was deeply moved, "would be for me to buy a flannel dressing-gown and a spade and become a ruddy Trappist monk."

2. "Shall I tell you something that may be of interest? You make me sick. Here am I, trying to collect material for the Memoirs I shall be writing one of these days, and what ought to be the most interesting part of them, the time I spent working for the great B___ in Hollywood, won't amount to a hill of beans because the great B___ is one of those strong silent Englishman who don't utter. They are generally described – correctly – as dumb bricks. All I shall be able to tell my public is that on the rare occasions when you did break your Trappist vows you talked as if you had a potato in your mouth."

3. "C___, we were at school together."

"It wasn't my fault."

"We've been pals for fifteen years."

"I know. It's going to take me the rest of my life to live it down."

"C___, old man," said D___, drawing up his chair closer and starting to knead my shoulder-blade, "listen! Be reasonable!"

And of course, dash it, at the end of ten minutes I'd allowed the blighter to talk me round. It's always the way. Anyone can talk me round. If I were in a Trappist monastery, the first thing that would happen would be that some smooth performer would lure me into some frightful idiocy against my better judgment by means of the deaf-and-dumb language.

4. He received chilly glances from both E___ and F___. There are times when a nephew and uncle with a great deal on their minds are glad of the addition to their deliberations of a weedy little man who looks like a barnyard fowl, but this was not one of them. [...]

"Got a bit of good news for you, mates," he said, and the bizarre idea that in the world as at present constituted there could be such a thing as good news held them speechless. Parted lips and bulging eyes showed how keen was their interest, but no verbal comment emerged. Except for a difference in clothes they might have been a couple of Trappist monks listening to a playlet of suspense on the radio.

And finally, two opportunities for receiving bonus points:

Bonus 1. Which Wodehouse character was condemned to – I quote – "monastic seclusion", described as "pure surroundings", with "no temptations, no late nights" and "plain food"?

Bonus 2. Which other Wodehouse character was on one occasion faced with the choice between shooting bears in the Rocky Mountains, burying himself in some distant South Seas island or going into a monastery?

Round 338 - 20 December 2007

Cows

It is but a small step from last week's Trappists to some of the most contemplative citizens of the animal kingdom. You are not asked to give the names of the cows, only of the human beings involved in the following fragments.

1. ... they moved to the low stone wall of the terrace and sat there, A___ gazing at B___, B___ staring at a cow in the park.

A___ was the first to break a rather strained silence.

"B___," she said, in a low, saintlike voice.

"Hello?"

"There is something I want to say to you."

"Oh, yes?"

"I hope you won't be very angry."

"Eh?"

"And tell me to mind my own business. Because it's about C___."

B___ removed his gaze from the cow. As a matter of fact, he had seen about as much of it as he wanted to see. A fine animal, but, as is so often the case with cows, not much happening. He found this conversational opening unexpectedly promising. His first impression, when this girl accosted him, had been that she wanted to touch him for the vicar's jumble sale, an enterprise in which he knew her to be interested.

2. "... last night I dreamed that I was playing in the final of the Open Championship, and I got into the rough, and there was a cow there, and the cow looked at me in a sad sort of way and said, 'Why don't you use the two-V grip instead of the interlocking?' At the time it seemed an odd sort of thing to happen, but I've been thinking it over and I wonder if there isn't something in it. These things must be sent to us for a purpose."

"You can't change your grip on the day of an important match."

"I suppose not. The fact is, I'm a bit jumpy, or I wouldn't have mentioned it. Oh well! See you tomorrow at two."

3. "D___, I can see a cow."

"Indeed, m'lord?"

"Down in the water-meadows. Remarkable. Might be two yards away."

4. "Not a bad shot for a man who has jerked very little since the old soda days. But if you have once jerked soda, you never really lose the knack. I like that red coat. Rather dressy."

E___ kissed him gratefully.

"You're an angel, F___. Nobody saw you, I hope?"

"Not a soul. The enemy's lines were thin and poorly guarded. Your hostess went to London soon after breakfast, and G___ is over at a neighbouring village, trying to sell someone a cow, I understand."

For a bonus point: in which American state were cows provided with motion picture performances in order to liven up the long winter months? (Yes, the answer can be found in the Wodehouse canon.)

Round 339 - 28 December 2007

New Year's Eve ... and The Morning After

Your quizmaster wishes you all a very happy New Year and offers you five examples of how to spend the turn of the year in a fruitful way.

1. "... and I find you here, mopping up the stuff like a vacuum cleaner ..."

"Aren't you being a bit pompous, old man?"

The point was well taken. I was, of course. But it seemed to me that pomposity was of the essence. I mean to say, you can't tick a bloke off properly unless you come over a bit mid-Victorian.

"I don't care if I am. You make me sick."

A look of pain came into his face.

"Is this A___ speaking?" he said reproachfully. "My cousin A___, who on New Year's Eve two years ago, in the company of myself and old B___, broke twenty-three glasses at the C___ [name of establishment] and was thrown out kicking and screaming –"

2. D___'s Pekes were all in bed when he got there, and when he went and sprang the little stranger on them he was delighted with the ready affability with which they made him one of themselves. Too often, when you introduce a ringer into a gaggle of Pekes, there ensues a scrap like New Year's Eve in Madrid; but tonight, after a certain amount of tentative sniffing, the home team issued their OK, and he left them all curled up in their baskets like so many members of the Athenaeum.

3. E___ was feeling well pleased. The artistry of his nephew's performance had enchanted him. He had not supposed that the boy had it in him to carry the thing through with such bravura. At the best he had hoped for a timid piping, and that full-throated baying, a cross between a bloodhound on the trail and a Scotsman celebrating New Year's Eve, had been as unexpected as it was agreeable.

4. It was the first time I had met the Vinton Street chap, always hitherto having patronized his trade rival at Bosher Street, but F___, who was introduced to him on the morning of January the first one year, had told me he was a man to avoid.

5. This was her first visit to England, and of course for all she knew it might be the normal practice of young Englishmen to hide in cupboards [...]

The more charitable theory that his activities might be a form of English humour had just presented itself, when her thoughts were diverted by the sight of G___. He came out of the house and started to walk in the direction of the lake. She hailed him, and he turned, and as he drew near the look on his face brought all the maternal instinct in her to life. It was the face of a man so weighed down with weight of woe that one wondered how he could navigate. His aspect reminded her of her husband on mornings of bygone January the firsts, when the late H___ owing to his habit of seeing the new year in had never been at his most robust.

Round 340 - 6 January 2008

Mothers-in-law

Now that the revels of the festive s. are over, we return to the grim reality of everyday life with a theme which makes your quizmaster wonder who ranks higher on the scale of Wodehousian horror: the Aunt ... or the Mother-in-law?

1. "Give me that book, A___!"

"Certainly not," said A___. "I intend to read it myself. I hear good reports of it on every side. The Peebles Intelligencer says: 'Vigorous and absorbing'."

A low wail from the other side of the door answered him.

"Of course," said A___, suggestively, "if it were my future mother-in-law who was speaking, her word would naturally be law."

2. "The whole affair," said B___, "appears to have been due to a foolish misunderstanding. This lady, C___, is the stepmother of this young lady here, to whom D___ should have been married to-day. There was some little trouble, I understand from E___, and she was left with the impression that D___'s morals were not all they should have been. Later, facts which came to light convinced her of her error, and she hastened to New York to seek D___ out and tell him that all was well and that the marriage would proceed with her full approval. That is correct, F___?"

F___ gulped. For a moment her eye seemed about to assume its well-known expression of a belligerent fish. But her spirit was broken. She was not the woman she had been. She had lost the old form.

"Yes ... Yes ... That is to say ... I mean, yes," she replied.

"You called at D___'s appartment with no other motive than to tell him this?"

"None ... Or, rather ... No, none."

"In fact, to put the thing in a nutshell, you wished to find your future son-in-law and fold him in a mother-in-law's embrace."

3. "Your iron?"

"Er – ah – yes. I have large interests in Iron – as also in Steel, Jute, Woollen Fabrics, and Consolidated Peanuts. A gang has been trying to hammer down my stock. Today I fixed them."

"You did, did you?" said G___.

"I said I did," retorted H___ defiantly.

"So did I. I said you did, did you?"

"What do you mean, did you?"

"Well, you did, didn't you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Exactly what I said. You did. Didn't you?"

"Yes, I did."

"Yes, you did!" said G___.

Once again H___ felt vaguely uneasy. There was nothing in the actual dialogue which had just taken place to cause him alarm – indeed, considered purely as dialogue, it was bright and snappy and well calculated to make things gay about the home. But once more there had been a subtle something in his mother-in-law's manner which had jarred upon him.

4. His heart was heavier than ever. Normally, the news that his mother-in-law had been swallowing brine and was still coughing would have brought a sparkle to his eyes and a happy smile to his lips, but now it left him cold. He was thinking of the conversation which had just concluded and remembering how cordial J___'s voice had been, how cheery, how loving – so absolutely in all respects the voice of a woman who thinks her husband a king among men. How different from the flat, metallic voice which was going to say "What!" to him in the near future.

5. "But I can't understand her making such heavy weather over the thing. Everybody knows a broken engagement doesn't amount to anything. Your aunt, I remember, broke ours six times in all before making the happiest man in the world. Bless her! The sweetest, truest wife man ever had. I hope her mother responds to treatment and that she will be back with me soon. But not too soon."