Another Round of "Hunt the Name"

This is almost the same as Round 349. Each question assembles brief descriptions, each referring to a different inhabitant of the Wodehouse universe. All the characters in a question have some part of a name in common. Your assignment is to find that name for each question. Again you are not required to provide the exact source of each excerpt or identify every character, just come up with the shared name. This time it is not necessarily a first name we seek, it could be any component. For example three passages might refer to Mrs (Maudie) Wilberforce, also known as Uncle George's barmaid, Wilberforce "Battling" Billson and Bertram Wilberforce Wooster.

In #4a, the "___" is the name you want. The [name omitted] of 4c is just omitted to make it more fun.

1. a. Cambridge boxing blue, 6'1", brown eyes, carroty hair, mustache and a face like a gorilla

b. when moved might twitch an eyebrow, or let it rise an eighth inch

c. When a boy at school he once made nine not out in a house match, but after that he went all to pieces. Played for the Hearty Lunchers

d. a hypothetical character scheduled for christening in March

2. a. Publicly criticized a superman's knickerbockers, after recovering from a white waistcoat with dinner-jacket

b. She is the girl with brain ...
No problem you can wish on her
Gives her a strain
She'll tackle gaily a score or more daily
If something is on your mind.

c. Irretrievably changed the look of the landlord's hat and helped demolish half a cold chicken

d. knows every single young man in Mayfair by sight

3. a. discovered in potting shed with steak and kidney pie

b. shunned the opportunity to become a Whitebait Wizard and in later life became a prosperous counsellor at the bar like Perry Mason, specialising in appearing for the defence

c. an uncle who left hurriedly for the other side when he learned the police were seeking his assistance in their swindle investigations

4. a. when starting a typewriting bureau, if one shades one's prices a little in the first month or so, all the ___ and Lionels and Lucians and Eustaces come running

b. resembled a homicidal fried egg but worth hearing on the subject of cats

c. delivered a character sketch of [name omitted] which "was the kind of thing a minor prophet of the Old Testament might have thrown together on one of his bilious mornings ... set up a mark at which other orators would shoot in vain"

5. a. chaired the Drones Club farewell dinner for Reggie Tennyson

b. prefers her fiends in human shape

c. had some of the properties of a sponge and some of a damp hearthrug and inflicted bites in the fleshy part of the thumb

d. tall, thin, scraggy and unable to disguise self as a tree or pail of potato-peel

For a bonus point, what in the canon links the characters referenced in 1b, 2b, 3b and 4b?

Round 352 - 17 April 2008

Dog fights

"The world is divided into those who can stop dog-fights and those who cannot."
– "Ruth in Exile" in The Man Upstairs and Other Stories

Identify the following scenes concerning canine controversy:

1. "Animal spirits!" said _A__ tolerantly. "Pure animal spirits! I like to see them. But, of course, I love all dogs."

"Oh, do you? So do I!"

"I only wish they didn't fight so much. I'm always stopping dog fights."

"I do admire a man who knows what to do at a dog fight. I'm afraid I'm rather helpless myself. There never seems anything to catch hold of."

2. There is about any dog fight a wild, gusty fury which affects the average mortal with something of the helplessness induced by some vast clashing of the elements. It seems so outside one's jurisdiction. One is oppressed with a sense of the futility of interference. And this was no ordinary dog fight. It was a stunning mélée ... From all over the beach dogs of every size, breed, and colour were racing to the scene: and while some of these merely remained in the ringside seats and barked, a considerable proportion immediately started fighting one another on general principles, well content to be in action without bothering about first causes. The terrier had got the poodle by the left hind-leg and was restating his war-aims. The raffish mongrel was apparently endeavouring to fletcherize a complete stranger of the Sealyham family.

_B__ was frankly unequal to the situation

[...]

The only reason why dog fights do not go on forever is that Providence has decided that on each such occasion there shall always be among those present one Master Mind; one wizard who, whatever his shortcomings in other battles of life, is in this single particular sphere competent and dominating. At ___ it was _C__.

3. ... he just leaned back in a chair and unhinged his lower jaw and let it droop, and sank into a sort of coma. And it was while he was still in this trance that he was delighted to hear a dog-fight in progress in the street. He went to the window and looked out, but the thing was apparently taking place somewhere near the front door, and the top of the porch hid it from him.

Now, _D__ hated to miss a dog-fight. Many of his happiest hours had been spent at dog-fights. And this one appeared form the sound of it to be on a more or less major scale. He ran down the stairs and opened the front door.

[...]

For about five minutes it was as inspiring a contest as you could have wished to see; but at the end of that time it stopped suddenly, both principals simultaneously observing a cat at an area gate down the road and shaking hands hastily and woofing after her.

4. There was nothing of the weakling about this sterling animal ...

Feeling that all these delightful people were relying on him to look after their interests and keep alien and subversive influences at a distance, he advanced with a bright willingness to the task of ejecting this intruder.

Nor was the Airedale disposed to hold back.

[...]

The reactions of a country-house party to an after dinner dog-fight in the drawing room always vary considerably according to the individual natures of its members.

5. "Only this morning, to show you what I mean, we were walking along the road and we met that wolfhound of _E__'s, and it said something to _F__ about the situation in China that made him hot under the collar. The little angel was just rolling up his sleeves and starting in to mix it, when I snatched him away. And _G__ said I shouldn't have done it. I should have let them fight it out, he said, so that they could get it out of their systems, after which a beautiful friendship would have resulted."

6. A miniature poodle which was passing sneered at him, but he did not even notice it.

The dachshund, however, did and took instant offence at the sneer, directed, he mistakenly supposed, at himself. A rasping sound like that of someone gargling mouthwash burst from his lips, and the next moment battle had been joined.

Most people, seeing _H__, would have put him down as an ordinary young man, and he was an ordinary young man, but it so happened that in the manner of stopping dog fights he was rather exceptional. He owned an animal of mixed ancestry whose touchy disposition led it to become embroiled with others of its kind at the drop of a bone. A good deal of his leisure had been spent in detaching it from the throats of a variety of antagonists. So now, where many a man would have hesitated, he acted. There was a rending sound, and the two belligerents came apart in his hands.

Two Bonus Point opportunities:

Which two dogs could be sleeping happily at different ends of a room when suddenly one would lift a head and stare, causing the other to stare back, and then they would rush at one another?

To end on a more peaceful note of not canine vs canine controversy but just one dog's cheerful sport: what avid chaser of birds precipitated a fateful series of events by mistaking a derelict piece of paper for an avian playmate and pursuing it into a pool, where the dog let the matter rest?

Round 353 - 28 April 2008

Hello to All Hats

In the next four weeks, we shall examine what the well-dressed man is wearing from head to toe, starting this week with The Amazing Hat Quiz. Name the owners of the hats.

1. … He was not wearing his hat but carrying it in his hand.

He was carrying it reverently, as if he attached a high value to it. And this was strange, for it was not much of a hat. Once it may have been, but now it looked as if it had been both trodden on and kicked about.

“A__,” he said, regarding this relic with a dreamy eye, “take this hat, and put it away.”

“Throw it away, sir?”

“Good heavens, no! Put it away – very carefully. Have you any tissue paper?”

A few pages later:

“… At that moment a gust of wind blew my hat off and it was bowling past her, when she stopped it. She trod on it, A__.”

“Indeed, sir?”

“Yes, this hat which you see in my hand, has been trodden on by Her. This very hat.”

2. “Look him squarely in the eye and tax him with his crime.”

“I will! Immediately.”

“I’ll come with you.”

… B__ had reached the hall and was peering agitatedly to right and left. “Where the devil’s my hat? I can’t find my hat. Somebody’s always hiding my hat. I will not have my hats hidden.”

“You don’t need a hat to tax a man with C__ [the crime in question],” said D__, who was well versed in the manners and rules of good society.

3. From somewhere behind him an arm shot out, there was an instant’s sickening suspense, and then the top hat which he loved nearly as much as life itself was rolling across the lobby with a stout man in the uniform of a Czecho-Slovakian Rear-Admiral in pursuit.

… The Admiral returned, bearing in his hand a battered something which for a space he was unable to recognise.

The Admiral was sympathetic. There was a bluff, sailorly sympathy in his voice as he spoke.

“Here you are, sir,” he said. “Here’s your rat. A little worse for wear, this sat is, I’m afraid, sir. A gentleman happened to step on it. You can’t step on a nat,” he said sententiously, “not without hurting it. That tat is not the yat it was.”

4. At the end of this passage was the front door, and beside the front door a hat-stand, from which protruded, like heads of the Burjoisy neatly skewered on pikes after the Social Revolution, divers hats …

Whoever owned this house appeared to have a perfectly astonishing taste in hats. On the three pegs were a cap with purple checks (a thing of pure nightmare); an almost unbelievable something constructed of black straw; and a bowler.

5. “We must look out for one another there,” he said cordially. “You will remember me again? I shall be wearing” – he gulped – “a top hat.”

“E__’s going to be wearing a stror penamaw that’s been give ’im.”

F__ regarded the lucky young devil with frank envy. He rather fancied he knew that panama. It had been his constant companion for some six years and then had been torn from him by his sister G__ and handed over to the vicar’s wife for her rummage-sale.

Bonus point 1: Name the two men who tell their girlfriends (in one case a fiancée) that their new hats make them look like, respectively, a Pekingese and Boris Karloff.

Bonus point 2: What does James Pirbirght’s Sunday hat have in common with one of Veronica Wedge’s camisoles?

Round 354 - 7 May 2008

Wodehouse and the Ties That Bind

Whenever I passed by,
Men stopped their conversation,
Drank in that Perfect Tie
In silent adoration.

– PG Wodehouse, Punch, 10 June 1903

There is no time at which ties do not matter. Identify the owners of the following ties.

1. I’m not much of a ladies’ man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young A__, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.

“Hallo, B__,” said A__.

“My God, man!” I gargled. “The cravat! The gent’s neckwear! Why? For what reason?”

“Oh, the tie?” he blushed. “I – er – was given it.”

2. They moved slowly and jerkily, like rheumatic buffaloes, and it is not surprising that on arrival at the front gate, they should have found a total shortage of C__s [profession of D]. D__ had gone, leaving not a wrack behind. All they saw was E__ and F__ standing by E__’s car, gazing interestedly down the road.

“Who,” E__ asked, becoming aware of their presence, “was the jack rabbit?”

“Something in a striped suit came whizzing past us,” said F__.

“Wearing pimples with a red tie,” said E__. “A mistake, I think. One or the other, but not both.”

3. All these attentions the animal received with cordiality and marked gratification: and as it seemed still in pleasure-seeking mood and had come to look upon him as the official Master of the Revels, G__, feeling that he could not disappoint it but must play the host no matter what the cost to himself, took off his tie and handed it over. He would not have done it for everybody, he says, but where this life-saving Peke was concerned the sky was the limit.

Well, the tie went like a breeze. It was a success from the start. The Peke chewed it and chased it and got entangled in it and dragged it about the room, and was just starting to shake it from side to side when an unfortunate thing happened. Misjudging its distance, it banged its head with a nasty wallop against the leg of the bed.

4. “It isn’t true,” said H__, dully. “It can’t be.”

“It is, H__, I’m afraid. Quite true,” said I__.

J__ was still wrestling with his private trouble.

“But he can’t be my brother!” he moaned. “He wears a made-up tie.”

5. But there was in K__ an instinct even stronger than that of battle, and that was the one which impelled her to act as critic of the sartorial deficiencies of her nearest and dearest …

“My dear L__! That tie!”

L__ gazed at her lingeringly. It needed, he felt, but this. Poison was running through his veins, his world was rocking, green-eyed devils were shrieking mockery in his ears, and along came blasted aunts babbling of ties. It was as if somebody had touched Othello on the arm as he poised the pillow and criticized the cut of his doublet.

Round 355 - 15 May 2008

The Joy of Socks

As we learned in a recent quiz, Archibald Mulliner has the finest collection of socks in London, but other characters in the canon have their share; and as long as Grace Forrester and Howard Saxby are around, the supply will not give out.

Identify the owners (or knitters or whatever) of the following socks.

1. “There’s a bit about socks that I think you will like.”

He took the manuscript, brooded over it, and smiled a gentle, approving smile.

“The sock passage is quite in the proper vein, sir,” he said.

2. It was the custom of A__, when the weather was fine, to sit in a garden chair on the terrace of B__ Manor after luncheon, knitting socks for the deserving poor. A believer, like C__, in spreading sweetness and light, she considered, possibly correctly, that there is nothing that brings the sunshine into grey lives like a sock or two.

… As A__ sat there, doing two plain, two purl, or whatever it is that women do when knitting socks, a sigh escaped her from time to time. She was thinking of D__.

3. E__ was knitting a sock in the tiny living-room which smelled in equal proportions of mice, ex-burglars and shag tobacco, and F__, as her gaze fell upon his rugged features, felt her heart leap within her like that of the poet Wordsworth when beholding a rainbow in the sky.

4. He could not remember a time when any one had ever darned socks for him. In the days of his careless prosperity he had simply worn the things until the holes became too vast even for his uncritical tolerance, and then had thrown them away. He lay back in his armchair, watching G__’s busy fingers, and told himself that this was life as it should be lived …

A few pages later, G puts a question:

“Would she mend your socks?” asked G__.

The question seemed to disconcert H__. He had recently come to regard sock-mending as one of the noblest pursuits of woman, and it pained him to discover anything even remotely resembling a flaw in J__’s perfection. But the fact had to be faced. Try as he might to envisage J__ mending socks, he could not do it.

5. I lay there, gazing pensively at the open window, which had turned into a dark-blue oblong with a couple of stars in it. And, as I gazed, these stars suddenly disappeared. Some substantial body had inserted itself between them and me, and I could hear the slither of a leg coming over the sill.

I switched on the light. A figure was standing in the room. It was the figure of a beefy bird in a quiet grey suit, its lower limbs finished off with powder-blue socks matching the neat tie and melting, as it were, into tasteful suède shoes. In fact, to cut a long story short, K__ in person.

Bonus point: Which Wodehouse hero was nicknamed “Socks”, and why?

Round 356 - 23 May 2008

Boots, Boots, Boots, Boots

He had played Rugby football … and at the art of hurling an opponent into a mud puddle and jumping on his neck with cleated boots had had few, if any, superiors.

– Bertram Wooster’s panegyric on the Rev. Harold Pinker

After rounds on hats, ties, and socks, we continue in a southerly direction. Name the owners of the boots below. May your efforts not prove bootless.

1. “I know what your game is. You are trying to undermine me, to win her from me with your insidious guile, and what I want to impress upon you with all the emphasis at my disposal is that if anything of this sort is going to occur again, you would do well to take out an accident policy with some good insurance company at the earliest possible date. You probably think that being a guest in your aunt’s house I would hesitate to butter you over the front lawn and dance on the fragments in hobnailed boots, but you are mistaken. It will be a genuine pleasure. By an odd coincidence I brought a pair of hobnailed boots with me.”

2. “Go into the parlour, dear, and sit down. I’m getting the tea.”

“Thanks.”

“WIPE YOUR BOOTS!”

The voice, thundering from a quarter whence hitherto only soft cooings had proceeded, affected A__ a little like the touching off of a mine beneath his feet. Spinning round he perceived a different person altogether from the mild and kindly hostess of a moment back. It was plain that there yet lingered in B__ not a little of the ancient fire. Her mouth was tightly compressed and her eyes gleamed dangerously.

“Theideaofyourbringingyournastydirtybootsintomynicecleanhousewithoutwipingthem!” said B__.

3. In the gap between its base and the carpet there was visible a colossal pair of boots.

They caught C__’s eye, and astonished him by their dimensions, but they conveyed no sinister message to him. Just a pair of boots, he felt – his host’s spare ones, presumably. It was only a moment later that, looking more closely, he noticed above them the southern end of a pair of trousers. And it was suddenly brought home to him, with a sickening shock which reduced his spinal column to the consistency of the spinach which was now boiling briskly on the kitchen stove, that inside these trousers were human limbs. It was, in short, no mere supplementary brace of beetle-crushers that stood there, but a pair in active use, with their proprietor in occupation.

4. “Then all he will require now is a sun helmet, a pair of puttees, and a pot of ointment for relieving alligator-bites.”

With the rapid decision of an explorer who is buying things for which somebody else is going to pay, he completed the selection of O__’s outfit.

“And what brings you here, P__?”

“Me? Oh, I looked in to buy a pair of spiked boots. I want to trample on a snake.”

“An odd coincidence. I came here to buy a horsewhip to horsewhip a snake.”

“A bad week-end for snakes,” said P__.

Bonus point 1: Who claims that he doesn’t want to examine his soul because he expects “the thing looks like an old boot”?

Bonus point 2: Who put frogs in whose boots?

Round 357 - 2 June 2008

Expletives Deleted

Sometimes when tempers are hot tongues can be unguarded. For example, Dahlia Travers, with a vocabulary enriched by her years in the hunting fields, has been known to make her nephew blush. The kind-hearted Wodehouse usually spares his readers blushes by doing a spot of discrete editing when tempers run amok.

1. All the householder in __(A)__ was roused. (…)

“Who are you? How did you get in? What are you doing with that hat?” proceeded __(A)__, decorating the bald questions with a few of the rich expletives which a soldier inevitably picks up in his years of service. __(A)__ had spent seven years with the Loyal Royal Worcestershires, who are celebrated for their plain speech. (…) “Breaking and entering! In broad daylight! Stealing my hats under my very nose! Well, I’ll be …”

He mentioned some of the things he would be. Most of them were spiritual, a few merely physical.

2. The supreme tragedies of life leave us momentarily stunned. For an instant which seemed an age __(B)__ could not understand what had happened. True, he realized that there had been an earthquake, a cloud-burst, and a railway accident, and that a high building had fallen on him at the exact moment when somebody had shot him with a gun, but these happenings would account for only a small part of his sensations. He blinked several times, and rolled his eyes wildly. (…) His lips writhed, his forehead turned vermilion. Beads of perspiration started out on his forehead. And then, with his whole soul seething like a cistern struck by a thunderbolt, he spoke.

“! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !” cried __(B)__.

Dimly he was aware of a wordless exclamation from the girl beside him, but he was too distraught to think of her now. It was as if all the oaths pent up within his bosom for so many weary days were struggling and jostling to see which could get out first. They cannoned into each other, they linked hands and formed parties, they got themselves all mixed up in weird vowel-sounds, the second syllable of some red-hot verb forming a temporary union with the first syllable of some blistering noun.

3. He was half-way across the flower beds, following the clearly defined tracks of his quarry in the mould, when a roar so loud and anguished that it compelled attention brought him to a momentary halt:

“Stop! You! What the devil do you think you’re doing, you ----- -----, ----- you?”

He perceived a large mauve-faced individual in golfing costume gesticulating forcefully from the steps of the house.

“-----! -----!! -----!!!” added this person, driving home his point.

4. “I say,” said __(C)__, shelving the topic, “who’s the bird talking to __(D)__?”

He pointed (…) and __(E)__, following the finger, winced as his eye rested once more upon __(F)__. (…)

“That is Mr. __(F)__,” he replied.

“Looks a bit of a ------,” said __(C)__ critically.

The expression was new to __(E)__, but he recognized it at once as the ideal description of __(F)__. His heart warmed to the little fellow, and he might quite easily at this moment have given him sixpence.

(Quizmaster's Note: The “-----” used by C to sum up F in this question appeared only in the American book. Readers of the British book were spared any speculation about the exact word as Wodehouse (or possibly his editors) replaced the “-----” with the less provocative and much safer “blister.”)

5. “It has come to my notice … It has been drawn to my attention … In fact, I have found out that he has ingratiated himself with you by pretending to have aristocratic connections. This is not the case. (…) His father was a solicitor, his aunt a chorus girl, and his Uncle Lancelot received an exemplary sentence for passing bad cheques. He has no other relatives.”

The gulp __(G)__ gave could be heard distinctly in West Dulwich.

“Well, the son of a ...” she said. The final word was lost in the forceful replacement of the receiver.

6. I hadn’t expected dear old __(H)__ to sing with joy when he found out what had happened, but I did think he might have showed a little more manly fortitude. He leaped up, glared at the kid and clutched his head. He didn’t speak for a long time, but, on the other hand, when he began he did not leave off for a long time. He was quite emotional, dear old boy. It beat me where he could have picked up such expressions.

Round 358 - 10 June 2008

The Scales of Justice

WS Gilbert’s Mikado of Japan always strove to let the Punishment Fit the Crime. This week I’ve collected examples of wrong-doers paying the price for their folly.

1. The scene seemed suddenly to change to a police-court, in which he was confronted by a magistrate who looked like an owl with a dash of weasel blood in him.

A dialogue then took place, of which all he recalls is this:

POLICEMAN: ’Earing cries of “Stop, thief!” your worship, and observing the accused running very ’earty, I apprehended ’im.

MAGISTRATE: How did he appear, when apprehended?

POLICEMAN: Very apprehensive, your worship.

MAGISTRATE: You mean he had a sort of pinched look? (laughter in court.) (…) Well, what have you to say, young man?

___(A)___: Oh, ah!

MAGISTRATE: More “owe” than “ah”, I fear. (laughter in court, in which his worship joined.) Ten pounds or fourteen days.

2. “Mr __(B)__ is in the hands of the constabulary. He spoke to me on the telephone from the jail this morning.”

(…)

“Did you learn any details?” asked __(C)__.

“Yes, madam. Mr __(B)__ supplied me with the facts. While visiting a night club [location of night club omitted to preserve the degree of difficulty of the question but if anyone needs a hint the Quizmaster will willingly provide the missing address] last night, he stabbed the master of ceremonies with an oyster fork. The latter, visibly taken aback, summoned the management, who summoned the police, who removed Mr __(B)__ to the station house. I hope it will not get into the papers, madam.”

(Several pages later Mr (B) returned home “looking soiled and crumpled, like a Roman Emperor who has sat up too late over the Falernian wine.”)

__(D)__ flexed her muscles.

“Well, __(B)__?” (…) “I am waiting for an explanation.”

__(C)__ raised her eyebrows.

“You feel that a man needs to explain why he stabbed a night club master of ceremonies? Just doin’ what comes naturally, I’d say. But I should like to know why you aren’t in prison, __(B)__. __(E)__ gave us to understand that you were in a dungeon with dripping walls, being gnawed by rats. What happened? Did the jailer’s daughter smuggle you in a file in a meat pie?”

“The judge let me off with a caution.”

3. Solid citizens like __(F)__ do not make scenes in public places unless they have good grounds for them, and in __(G)__’s empurpled face he seemed to read obvious signs of guilt. Actually __(G)__ had turned purple because of the piece of fillet steak to which allusion was made earlier, but __(H)__ was not aware of this. The way he reasoned was that if a man is called a swindler and immediately becomes the colour of a ripe plum, the verdict is in, and remembering that in his guest’s wallet was a cheque for two thousand pounds, signed “__(H)__”, he acted promptly. Edging around the table, he flung himself on __(G)__ and in next to no time had begun to try to throttle him.

There are, no doubt, restaurants where behaviour of this sort would have been greeted with a sympathetic chuckle or, at worst, by a mere raising of the eyebrows, but that of Barribault’s Hotel was not one of them. Waiters looked at each other in pained surprise, head waiters pursed their lips, the peer of the realm said “Most extraordinary!” and a bus boy was sent out to summon a policeman.

(Seven chapters later the reader is informed of the upshot of the unfortunate fracas described above. Poor old (H) was obliged to spend the night in prison, was given a forced bath by the authorities in the morning, and then was given the option by the Bosher Street magistrate of paying a fine of ten pounds or spending a further fourteen days in custody. (H) selected the first-named option.)

4. Some demon sent stark madness on the well-dressed gent. He gave the constable a punch just where the latter kept his lunch. The constable said “Well! Well! Well!” and marched him to a dungeon cell. At Vine Street Station out it came – __(I)__ was the culprit’s name. But British Justice is severe alike on pauper and on peer; with even hand she holds the scale; a thumping fine, in lieu of gaol, induced __(I)__ to feel remorse and learn he mustn’t punch the force.

5. The Law of Great Britain is a remorseless machine, which, once set in motion, ignores first causes and takes into account only results. It will not accept shattered dreams as an excuse for shattered glassware: nor will you get far by pleading a broken heart in extenuation of your behaviour in breaking waiters. Haled on the morrow before the awful majesty of Justice at Bosher Street Police Court and charged with disorderly conduct in a public place (…) and resisting an officer (…) in the execution of his duties, __(J)__ made no impassioned speeches. He did not raise clenched fists aloft and call upon heaven to witness that he was a good man wronged. Experience, dearly bought in the days of his residence at the University, had taught him that when the Law gripped you with its talons the only thing to do was to give a false name, say nothing and hope for the best.

Shortly before noon, accordingly, on the day following the painful scene just described, __[a false name invented by J]__, of 7 Nasturtium Villas, Cricklewood, poorer by the sum of five pounds was being conveyed in a swift taxi-cab (…) to piece together his broken life and try to make a new start.

Round 359 - 18 June 2008

Retribution – Part One

This week: The hero’s reward.

1. “Never have I esteemed __(A)__ so highly as at this moment. I consider him a public benefactor, a selfless altruist. (…) I intend, indeed, personally and with my own hands to give him a good plate of fish.”

1a. For a bonus point, who was the grateful recipient of a plate of liver as his (or her) hero‘s reward?

2. “How much money is there on the dressing-table?”

“In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five-pound notes, a ten-shillings, two half-crowns, a florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir.”

“Collar it all,” I said. “You’ve earned it.”

3. Here the orator bowed, and took advantage of the applause to replenish his stock of breath. When his face had begun to lose the purple tinge, he raised his hand.

“I ‘ave only to add,” he resumed, “that this ‘ero is engaged exclusively by the management of the Palace Theatre of Varieties, at a figure previously undreamed of in the annals of the music-hall stage. He is in receipt of the magnificent weekly salary of no less than one thousand one ‘undred and fifty pounds a week.”

Thunderous applause.

“(…) Ladies and gentlemen, I have finished, and it only now remains for me to retire, ‘aving duly announced to you England’s Darling Son, the Country’s ’Ero, the Nation’s Proudest Possession - __(B)__.”

4. __(C)__ listened with her heart full of surging emotions, which I cannot possibly go into if you persist in looking at that damned watch of yours. The scales had fallen from her eyes. She had thought slightingly of this man because he had been a little over-careful of his health, and all the time he had had within him the potentiality of heroism. Something seemed to snap inside her.

“__(D)__!” she cried, and flung herself into his arms.

“__(C)__!” muttered __(D)__, gathering her up.

5. “You’ve been saying how brave I was.”

“So you were. It was the bravest thing I ever heard of.”

“You’re looking on me as a sort of hero.”

“Of course I am.”

(…There then follows a page of dialogue in which the male half of the sketch reveals the true facts behind the alleged heroic act.)

There was a silence. Then __(E)__ leaned quickly over the side of the car and kissed the top of his head.

“And you thought I would mind?”

“I thought you would wish you hadn’t made quite such a fuss over my reckless courage.”

“But still you told me?

“Yes.”

__(E)__ kissed the top of his head again.

“Quite right,” she said. “Mother always wants her little man to tell the truth.”

Round 360 - 26 June 2008

Retribution – Part Two

This week: Payback time! Cabinet ministers being marooned on swan-infested islands in the pouring rain; Woosters being compelled to embark on 18-mile bicycle rides in the dead of night; barristers being locked in cellars by their own butlers; boy scouts being kicked in the bulging seats of their khaki pants by enraged cousins; police constables being assaulted by duck ponds. These are just a few of the punishments available to misbehaving Wodehouse characters. How many more can you identify?

1. This cigarette, in its holder, was still between my lips. Hastily removing it, I pressed the glowing end on the ham-like hand which was impeding my getaway.

The results were thoroughly gratifying. You would have thought that the trend of recent events would have put __(A)__ in a frame of mind to expect anything and be ready for it, but this simple manoeuvre found him unprepared.

2. It will be no use Love sending a gift of roses to __(B)__ (…) or __(C)__ (…) for some little time to come because they won’t be able to smell ‘em. Both are at home at this writing with swollen noses, the result of an encounter with what appears to have been a first-class fiend.

As Faust once remarked, there are moments when a fellow needs a fiend, but neither __(B)__ (…) nor __(C)__ (…) needed this one when he descended on the former’s cosy little cottage (…). They were playing checkers and did not require a third.

(,,,)

The fiend leaped onto the porch and immediately dispelled any notion that might have been lurking in the minds of the checker players that here was a mere kibitzer who had come to breathe down the backs of their necks and offer advice, by pasting __(B)__ squarely on the schnozzle. And while __(B)__ was calling on the Supreme Court to have this declared unconstitutional, he did precisely the same to __(C)__. He then left by the front or carriage entrance.

3. For even as his mind dwelled on the thought that he had paid __(D)__ fifty pounds to deprive himself of the sweepstake money, he was also vividly aware that in a brace of shakes he would be standing his distant cousin (…) a lunch which (…) could scarcely put him in the hole for less than a fiver. He whole soul seethed like a cistern struck by a thunderbolt, and everything seemed to go black.

The Crumpet was regarding him with concern.

“Don’t gulp like that, __(E)__,” he said. “You can’t be sick here.”

__(E)__ was not so sure. He was feeling as if he could be sick anywhere.

4. __(F)__‘s a woman with ideas. When we were co-workers (…) there was a traffic cop (…) who lurked beside his motorcycle in a dark corner and sprang on it and dashed out to pursue motorists and give them tickets. We used to watch him from our windows, and we all burned to do something to the man, but only __(F)__ had the vision and intelligence to go out and tie a chain to his back wheel while he was in the drug store and fasten the other end to a hydrant, so that the next time he sprang on his machine and started off, he was brought up short and shot over the handlebars and looked about as silly as I ever saw a traffic cop look.

5. “You were a little too overwrought to observe it, no doubt,” he said, “but there was a hornets’ nest two inches above his head. I think we cannot be accused of being unduly sanguine if we assume that when he starts to … Ah!” said __(G)__. “Hark!”

Unmusical cries were ruining the peace of a spring evening.

“And look,” added __(G)__.

As he spoke a form came sliding hastily down out of the tree. At a rapid pace it moved across the turf to the water (…). It dived in and, having done so, seemed anxious to remain below the surface, for each time a head emerged from those smelly depths it went under again.

“Nature’s remedy,” said __(G)___.

6. And, for this week’s Bonus Point, can you identify the brothers who received their respective comeuppances within moments of each other - the first brother receiving a flesh wound in the upper arm administered by an antagonist armed with a richly inlaid Damascus dagger; while the second brother was kicked down a flight of stairs by the same antagonist?