The Fourth of July

"You remind me more of a deaf-mute celebrating the Fourth of July with noiseless powder than anything else on earth", Arthur Mifflin says to Jimmy Pitt in chapter 2 of A Gentleman of Leisure. Your quizmaster is hoping to provide you with a somewhat more animated celebration of Independence Day this week.

1. If, he said to himself, it was necessary in order to win A___ to become a tennis player, a tennis player he would be.

And, inquiries having informed him that the quickest way of accomplishing this degradation was to put himself in the hands of a professional, he turned up his coat collar, pulled down the brim of his hat, and snaked off to the lair where the man plied his dark trade. And presently he found himself facing a net with a racquet in his hand. Or rather, hands, for naturally he had assumed the orthodox interlocking grip.

This led the professional to make his first criticism.

"You hold the racquet in one hand only," he said.

B___ was astounded, but he was here to learn, so he followed out the instruction, and having done so peered about him, puzzled.

"Where," he asked, "is the flag?"

"Flag?" said the professional. "But it isn't the fourth of July."

2. C___ climbed the steps listlessly. The interview had left him weak and shaken. He brooded dully on this revelation of the inky depths of D___'s soul. It seemed to him that if this was what England's upper classes (who ought to be setting an example) were like, Great Britain could not hope to continue much longer as a first-class power, and it gave him in his anguish a little satisfaction to remember that in years gone by his ancestors had thrown off Britain's yoke. Beyond burning his eyebrows one Fourth of July, when a boy, with a maroon that exploded prematurely, he had never thought much about this affair before, but now he was conscious of a glow of patriotic fervour. (...)

C___ wandered aimlessly through the sunlit garden. The little spurt of consolation caused by the reflection that some hundred and fifty years previously the United States of America had severed relations with a country which was to produce a man like D___ had long since ebbed away, leaving emptiness behind it.

3. "You might have killed him," she said. She spoke bitterly with clenched teeth (...) and would have hissed the words if there had been an "s" in them.

E___, still respectful, disputed this point.

"I would not go so far as to say that, miss. Just a simple slosh on the head, such as so often occurs during a religious argument. But if I might be permitted to say so, I would like to express regret and contrition for having taken such a liberty. From the bottom of me heart, miss ..."

F___ broke in with his usual impatience. He was in no mood for oratory.

"Now don't stand there making speeches. This isn't the Fourth of July."

4. The bedroom which had been allotted to Lord G___ was a spacious apartment on the second floor, looking out over the park. It was thither that he conducted H___, bringing him to rest on the chaise-longue which stood beside the window.

"Relax, my boy," he said, tidying up his nephew's legs, which were showing a tendency to straggle and gently placing a cushion behind his head. "You seem a little overwrought. You remind me of an old New York friend of mine (...) one Fourth of July when somebody touched off a maroon beneath his chair. The same stunned look. Odd."

Round 362 - 14 July 2008

The Bonny Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond

If you are familiar with the powerful lyrics of the above ballad, you know that there are, broadly speaking, two ways of going to Scotland: you can either take the high road, or – in sharp contradistinction – you can choose the low road. Please identify the high and low road travellers in the following excerpts, no identification being required for the bank note in question 4. This quiz is dedicated to His Grace, Alaric, Duke of Dunstable.

1. I drew myself up. I was cold and resolute.

"You're crazy, A___!"

"I don't see why you say that."

"Then let me explain where your whole scheme falls to the ground. To begin with, is it likely that after what has passed between us B___ would issue an invitation to one who has always been to him a pain in the neck to end all pains in the neck? If ever there was a man who was all in favour of me taking the high road while he took the low road, it is this same B___. His idea of a happy day is one spent with at least a hundred miles between him and C___."

"D___ would invite you, if you sent her a wire asking if you could come for a day or two. She never consults B___ about guests. It's an understood thing that she has anyone she wants to at the house."

2. "But I thought your uncle gave you rather a good salary."

"So he did. But my uncle and I are about to part company. From now on, he, so to speak, will take the high road and I'll take the low road. I dine with him tonight, and over the nuts and wine I shall hand him the bad news that I propose to resign my position in the firm. I have no doubt that he supposed he was doing me a good turn by starting me in his fish business, but even what little experience I have had of it has convinced me that it is not my proper sphere. The whisper flies round the clubs 'E___ has not found his niche!' "

3. There was a bottle in F___'s hand and another sticking out of his pocket, for a man in love who has seen the adored object totter from his presence with a hand to her forehead and her lips drawn together in almost unendurable pain does not just go on sitting in an armchair smoking his cigar – he hastens to the ship's doctor in quest of headache remedies. F___ had done so the moment G___ had parted from him in the lounge. While she had taken the high road and gone off to the second-class promenade deck, he had taken the low road that led to the dispensary somewhere down in the bowels of the ship.

4. As in a dream, H___ produced a five-pound note. As in a dream, he handed it over. As in a dream, I___ took it.

"Mr I___," H___ began. Then words failed him, and with a defiant look at J___ such as an Indian coolie, safe up a tree, might have given the baffled crocodile at the foot of it, he strode away humming a gay air, his hat on the side of his head. And I___ was gazing lovingly at the bank note and on the point of giving it a hearty kiss, when a nippy little breeze, springing up from the sea, blew it out of his hand and it went fluttering away in the direction of the esplanade as if equipped with wings.

It was a situation well calculated to nonplus the keenest-witted. It nonplussed I___ completely. His primary impulse, of course, was to follow his lost treasure as it flew, it taking the high road and himself the low road, but even as he braced his muscles for the quick cross-country run there flashed into his mind those parting words of K___ about not letting J___ out of his sight. He knew well what had been the thought behind them. Let out of sight, the child might well wander into the sea and go down for the third time or get on the wrong side of the law by hitting some holiday-maker on the head with his spade.

5. L___ started. The suggestion had come as a complete surprise to him, and like all new ideas it took some assimilating. Nothing at the beginning of this conversation could have been further from his mind than the thought of resuming relations with a man who had not only deprived him of a large sum of money but who gulped M___'s priceless port as if it had been the rye or bourbon of his native land. He had talked with him; in the matter of the port he might be said to have been his host; but the last thing he would have contemplated was the taking him on again as one of his boys. Where N___ was concerned, he would have said that he had had it. All he had felt as far as their future association was involved was that he would take the high road and N___ the low road and it was his fervent hope that he would never set eyes on the man again.

But the defection of O___ altered everything. It had left him in no position to indulge private animosities.

Round 363 - 21 July 2008

Olympic Ideas

The upcoming Olympics will dominate the next two rounds. This week: disciplines which have inexplicably been left out from the 2008 Games.

1. A___, having observed the secretary's awakening from the safe observation-post of B___'s bedroom, and having noted that he seemed to be exhibiting no signs of violence, had decided to make his presence known. His panic had passed, and he wanted to go into first causes.

C___ gazed wanly up at the window.

"I can explain everything, A___."

"What?" said A___, leaning farther out.

"I can explain everything," bellowed C___.

"It turns out after all," said B___ pleasantly, "to be very simple. He was practising for the Jerking The Geranium event at the next Olympic Games."

2. It was fortunate that I was not holding a tea cup as she spoke, for hearing D___ thus addressed I gave another of my sudden starts and, had I had such a cup in my hand, must have strewn its contents hither and thither like a sower going forth sowing. As it was, I merely sent a cucumber sandwich flying through the air.

"Oh, sorry," I said, for it had missed E___ by a hair's breadth.

I could have relied on F___ to shove her oar in. The girl had no notion of passing a thing off.

"Excuse it, please," she said. "I ought to have warned you. G___ is training for the Jerk The Cucumber Sandwich event at the next Olympic Games. He has to be practising all the time."

3. "(...) and finally H___ took up a bowl of fruit salad and was about to strike your father with it, when your father grabbed this turkey, which was on a side table with the other cold viands, and with one blow laid him out as flat as a crêpe suzette. (...) So H___ has not forgotten and forgiven after thirty years. At least I gather from your manner that the episode still rankles."

"He certainly went up in the air when I said whose son I was."

"It just shows what a beautiful cold turkey your father used to swing in his prime. I have always thought it a pity that there was no event of that kind in the Olympic Games."

4. Even J___ was distinctly upset by the sudden sharpness of the report. His bun sprang from his hand and was dashed to fragments. He blinked thrice in rapid succession. His heart tried to jump out of his mouth and loosened a front tooth.

But on the woman opposite the effect of the untoward occurrence was still more marked. With a single piercing shriek, she rose from her seat straight into the air like a rocketing pheasant; and, having clutched the communication-cord, fell back again. Impressive as her previous leap had been, she excelled it now by several inches. I do not know what the existing record for the Sitting High-Jump is, but she undoubtedly lowered it; and if J___ had been a member of the Olympic Games Committee, he would have signed this woman up immediately.

Round 364 - 30 July 2008

Mysterious Chinamen (and a Few Women)

Part two of our Olympic preparation: China. Please identify all the characters in the following excerpts.

1. "Oh, hullo, A___. Is the car outside?"

"Straining at the leash."

"Then let us be off, shall we?"

"Well, I'll tell you," said A___. "I can readily understand your desire to hasten homeward and get into something loose –"

"It's my shoes, principally."

"They look beautiful."

"They're pinching me."

"The very words my nephew B___ said that day at the dog races, and his statement was tested and proved correct. Courage, C___! Think of the women in China. You don't find them beefing because their shoes are tight."

2. "His lordship, you gather, sir, is incensed?"

I could answer that one.

"Yes, D___. His remarks, as far as I was able to catch them, were unquestionably those of a man a good deal steamed up. What is the Death of the Thousand Cuts?"

"It is a penal sentence in vogue in Chinese police courts for minor offences. Roughly equivalent to our fourteen days with the option of a fine. Why do you ask, sir?"

"E___ happened to mention it in passing. It's one of the things he is planning to do to F___ when they get together."

3. Rosy with exercise, tanned by the Californian sun, G___ presented an attractive picture. H___, looking at her, could follow I___'s thought processes and understand his habit of proposing to her every hour on the hour.

"You two look very serious," said G___. "What goes on?"

"J___ and I were discussing the situation in China," said H___. "He has been holding me spellbound."

4. "So you've gone and saved my life again, cocky," he said at length. "Do you realise that if we were in China you would have to hand over all your property to me, give me all you've got, if you take my meaning?"

"Would I?"

"You certainly would. That's the law in China, when you save a man's life."

"What asses these Chinese are!"

"Not at all," said K___ warmly. "I call it a very good rule. You can't expect to go about saving people's lives and not suffer for it."

Extra credit: which Wodehouse character spent several days of his boyhood in a bootless effort to dig his way through to China using a pocket knife (and breaking said instrument in the process)?

Round 365 - 11 August 2008

An Imitation Quiz

This week we offer genuine, not imitation, questions requiring entrants to use their brains or whatever just-as-good substitutes they may have at their disposal to identify the skilled performers of conscious and unconscious imitations below.

1. This was news to me, that _A_'s uncle was a duke. Rum, how little one knows about one's pals! I had met _A_ for the first time at a species of beano or jamboree down in ... I rather took to _A_ when I found that he was an Englishman and had, in fact, been up at Oxford with me. Besides, he was a frightful chump, so we naturally drifted together; and while we were taking a quiet snort in a corner that wasn't all cluttered up with artists and sculptors and what-not, he furthermore endeared himself to me by a most extraordinarily gifted imitation of a bull-terrier chasing a cat up a tree. But, though we had subsequently become extremely pally, all I really knew about him was that he was generally hard up, and had an uncle who relieved the strain a bit from time to time by sending him monthly remittances.

2. _B_ never wearied of hearing of the eccentricities of the members of the club. It occurred to _C_ that he was in luck to-day. He was expecting a little party of friends to supper that night, and he was a man who loved an audience.

You would never have thought it, to look at him when engaged in his professional duties, but _C_ had built up a substantial reputation as a humorist in his circle by his imitations of certain members of the club; and it was a matter of regret to him that he got so few opportunities nowadays of studying the absent-minded _D_. It was rare luck – his lordship coming in to-day, evidently in his best form.

3. The sight of the protruding head had had the effect of stirring _E_ to give of his best. Once more _F_ was privileged to witness his impersonation of a baseball player winding up, which in its essentials rather closely resembles the first stages of an epileptic fit. The next moment an egg, unerringly aimed, had found its target.

"Right in the groove," said _E_ contentedly. He wandered off, conscious of a good night's work done, and _F_ had scarcely had time to light a cigarette and enjoy a few refreshing puffs when he was joined by _G_ ... carrying a shotgun.

4. The law could not touch you for being influenced by _H_, but there is an ethical as well as a legal code, and this it was obvious that _I_ had transgressed. Women drew away from him slightly, holding their skirts. Men looked at him censoriously. _J_ started violently, and dropped a tea-cup. And _K_, doing his popular imitation of a sardine in his corner, felt for the first time that life held something of sunshine.

_I_ was plainly shaken, but he made an adroit attempt to recover his lost prestige.

"When I say I have been influenced by _H_ I mean, of course, that I was once under his spell.

5. Leaving _L_ to continue his imitation of a spavined octogenarian rolling peanuts with a toothpick, _M_, followed by his caddy, set out on the long trail into the jungle.

Hope did not altogether desert him as he walked.

6. "Well, look ... They ask me as a special favour to come and imitate the call of the cuckoo for this new picture, and when I do it _N_ says I've done it wrong."

"The hound," breathed _O_.

"He says a cuckoo goes Cuckoo, Cuckoo, when everyone who has studied the question knows that what it really goes is Wuckoo, Wuckoo."

For a Bonus Point: Who implores her two companions to cease their imitation of a famous London knockabout cross-talk act, naming the particular act? The request is made as she sets down a food product which may well have come from the Purvis family firm.

Round 366 - 18 August 2008

A few weeks back Fr Rob Bovendeaard helped us prepare for the Olympics. Now that the Games are in progress let's take some time out to look at some other sports that are not presently Olympic events but perhaps should be considered.

1. "I wonder if you have reflected that if only he could square the housemaid, every visitor at a country house would be able to take in paying guests and make a good deal of money."

"And how are you going to square the housemaid?"

"Odd how when one keeps repeating that it sounds like one of those forgotten sports of the past. Squaring the housemaid. One can picture William the Conqueror being rather good at it. My dear _A_, have no uneasiness. The housemaid is already squared."

2. Yet, as they alighted, _B_ voiced a certain dissatisfaction with her work.

"Forty-three minutes," she said, frowning at her watch. "I can do better than that."

"Can you?" gulped _C_. "Can you, indeed?"

"Well, we're in time for tea, anyhow. Come in and meet the mater. Forgotten Sports of the Past – Number Three, Meeting the Mater."

3. "See here, if you'll fix up this show for half of one per cent, I'll give you the other to do."

"You shouldn't slur your words so. For a moment I thought you said 'half of one per cent.' One and a half of course you really said."

"If you won't take half, you don't get the other."

"All right," said_D_. "There are lots of other managers in New York. Haven't you seen them popping about? Rich, enterprising men, and all of them love me like a son."

"Make it one per cent," said _E_ , "and I'll see if I can fix it with _K_."

"One and a half."

"Oh, damn it, one and a half, then," said _E_ morosely. "What's the good of splitting straws?"

"Forgotten Sports of the Past – Splitting the Straw. All right. If you drop me a line to that effect, legibly signed with your name, I'll wear it next my heart. I shall have to go now. I have a date. Good-bye. Glad everything's settled and everybody's happy."

4. "... what do we do for that eye of yours?"

"I was about to take it to bed."

"It wants bathing in warm water."

"It wants 'avin' a bit of steak put on it," said _F_ with decision. His had been a life into which at one time injured eyes had entered rather largely. "You trot along to the larder, ducky, and get a nice piece of raw steak. Have him fixed up in no time."

"I think you're right," said _G_.

"I know I'm right. You can't beat steak."

"Cruel Sports of the Past – Beating the Steak. I hate to give you all this trouble."

5. "If it wasn't for me, you'd be keeping four clubs in the air right now for some ten-for-a-nickel management nobody ever heard of."

_H_ bridled. Her professional pride had been touched.

"Don't you go four-clubbing me. I done six clubs for the wow at the finish, and done it for years."

"Yeah, and there isn't a stage between here and California ain't got dents in it from them clubs of yours. They wouldn't let nobody sit in the first five rows."

We could not leave out Eggs and Spoons. For a Bonus Point name at least three (3) characters who are winners of Egg and Spoon races.

Round 367 - 26 August 2008

Bull-pups and Friends

In physical appearance and also in methods of voice production, many Wodehouse characters resemble certain breeds of dog. Bull-pups are frequently mentioned and their sounds evidently are particularly poignant, for example in the reconciliation scene from the short story "Best Seller":

"[Evangeline] had flung herself on the sofa and was now chewing the cushion in an ecstasy of grief. She gulped like a bull-pup swallowing a chunk of steak. And, on the instant, Egbert Mulliner's adamantine reserve collapsed as if its legs had been knocked from under it."

Please identify the characters resembling bull dogs in the passages given in Part I and in Part II provide the name of each character who has the look of another particular breed.

Part I: Bulldogs

1. "Don't tell me, _A_ ," he said brokenly, "that nothing suggests itself."

"Nothing at the moment, I regret to say, _B_."

_C_ uttered a stricken woofle like a bulldog that has been refused cake.

"Well, then, the only thing I can do, I suppose," he said somberly, "is not to let the pie-faced little thug out of my sight for a second."

2. "... It is so seldom that one meets a man who, while long off the tee, also plays an impeccable game fifty yards from the pin. It seems to me you have everything."

Words like these should have been music to _D_'s ears, but he merely uttered a short grunt like a bulldog choking on a piece of steak.

"In fact, I don't mind telling you, _D_," still in that genial and ingratiating manner, "that I shall watch your future progress with considerable interest. It is a pity that this year's Walker Cup matches are over, for our team might have been greatly strengthened. Well, I venture to assert that next season the selection of at least one member will give the authorities little trouble."

3. As he stared at her in deep concern, she flung herself in a chair with a choking sob and buried her face in her hands.

And, seeing her weeping there, _E_ could restrain himself no longer. Something snapped in him. It was his collar-stud. His neck, normally a fifteen and an eighth, had suddenly swelled under the pressure of uncontrollable emotion into a large seventeen. For an instant he stood gurgling wordlessly like a bull-pup choking over a chicken-bone: then, darting forward, he clasped her in his arms and began to murmur all those words of love which until now he had kept pent up in his heart.

He spoke well and eloquently and at considerable length, but not at such length as he had planned.

4. Whose attempted match-making between a friend and a new acquaintance with a face like a bulldog fails miserably?

Part II

1. Who looked more like a dachshund than most dachshunds do?

2. "There was always something about him that reminded those with whom he mixed of a wire-haired terrier" refers to whom?

3. Who remarked "People have told me I look like a German Boxer." and was told that was "a most attractive Boxer"?

4. Who forgets where he is and in a sort of trance points like a setter?

5. Who sang like a Siberian wolfhound in full cry after a Siberian wolf?

Bonus Point. At least one uncle and one aunt make noises like stricken bull pups. Whose uncle and whose aunt are they and which manages to resemble three distinct bull pups in the course of a single conversation?

Round 368 - 5 September 2008

My umbrella, dash it! Where's my umbrella?

We last had a round of umbrellas back in 2005 so it seems time for another. These useful items crop up often in many roles. Please identify A to H below and the character in #5 who honeymooned with another's umbrella.

1. "... It's not wholesome for a man to worship a pig the way he does. Isn't there something in the Bible about the Israelites worshiping a pig? No, it was a golden calf, but the principle's the same. I tell you ..."

He broke off. The door had opened again. _A_stood on the threshold, his mild face agitated.

"_B_, I can't find my umbrella."

"Oh, __!" said _B_ with the exasperation the head of the family so often aroused in her, and hustled him out toward the cupboard in the hall where, as he should have known perfectly well, his umbrella had its home.

2. The thing started one morning when _C_ returned to the love-nest for a bite of lunch after taking the Pekinese for a saunter. He was in the hall trying to balance an umbrella on the tip of his nose, his habit when at leisure, and _D_ came out of her study with a wrinkled brow and a couple of spots of ink on her chin.

"Oh, there you are," she said. "_C_, have you ever been to Monte Carlo?"

3. _E_ shook him off impatiently. He had no desire at a time like this to chatter with strangers. The man was babbling something, but the words made no impression upon his mind. With a savage scowl, _E_ snatched the fellow's umbrella from him and, poising it for an instant, flung it with a sure aim through _F_'s study window. Then, striding away, he made for Berkeley Street. Glancing over his shoulder as he turned the corner, he saw that _G_, the butler, had come out of the house and was standing over the spectacled man with a certain quiet menace in his demeanor. He was rolling up his sleeves, and his fingers were twitching a little.

4. _H_'s had been a sheltered life, and until now no situation of this kind had thrust itself upon her, but a woman's instinct told her the correct course to pursue. Acting promptly, as Joan of Arc would have done in her place, she extended the umbrella which had served her so well on previous occasions. The predatory one, receiving it between his flying legs, performed several steps of what might have been one of the more uninhibited modern dances, and the wallet flew from his hand. Prudently not pausing, he continued his headlong course, and the Roman emperor, galloping up, swooped on his property and clutched it to his bosom.

5. "I just looked in to return his umbrella."

"His umbrella?"

"He lent it to me ten years ago. I was at his flat one afternoon and it was raining, and I was in a great hurry ...

... we spent the honeymoon at Le Touquet. It rained the whole time- But, of course, I had the umbrella."

For a Bonus Point: whose first and only golfing trophy was a striped umbrella?

Round 369 - 12 September 2008

Pirates

Ahoy, me hearties! Hoist the Jolly old Roger! Yo-frightfully-ho and a snifter of port!

This Friday be International Talk Like a Pirate Day (September 19). Identify the passages below, or prepare to walk the plank with a cutlass at your back.

Pip-pip--or, rather, avast, ye scurvy scum! Arrr!

1. For some time after this there was a good deal of what you might call mixed chatter, in which – through dudgeon – I took no part. Everybody talked at once, and nobody said anything that you could have described as being in the least constructive. Except old A__, who proved that I had been right in thinking that he must at one time have been a pirate of the Spanish or some other Main by coming boldly out with a suggestion for a rescue party.

2. The bookmaker, moreover, was not one of those kindly bookmakers with hearts of gold who can sympathise with a fiscally embarrassed young man and allow his account to remain unsettled indefinitely. Informed by B__ that there might be a long delay before payment could be made, he had drawn in his breath sharply and looked grave.

“Oh, I do hope there won’t be, B__,” he said. “I know it’s silly to be superstitious, but I can’t help remembering that every single client of mine that’s done me down has had an accident happen to him …”

This conversation had taken place at the house of the creditor, and B__ had left his presence feeling like a nervous young member of Captain Kidd’s pirate crew who has just been handed the black spot.

3. In the printed brochures put out by transatlantic steamship companies the discerning reader always seems to detect a note of uneasiness. The writers are trying not to be pessimistic, but they are plainly prepared for the worst and keeping their fingers crossed. They hint nervously at the possibility of typhoons and waterspouts and there is always, they feel, the chance of mutiny on the high seas and piracy. It is pleasant, therefore, to be able to report that the S.S. Atlantic won through to the final day of the voyage without disaster. No water had spouted, no typhoon had blown, no pirates had put in an appearance …

4. C__ was telling himself that he had been afraid of this bounder D__ all along. He might have known, he felt, that D__ would be a menace. The man was one of those lean, keen, hawk-faced, Empire-building sort of chaps you find out East – the kind of fellow who stands on deck chewing his moustache with a far-away look in his eyes, and then, when the girl asks him what he is thinking about, draws a short, quick breath and says he is sorry to be so absent-minded, but a sunset like that always reminds him of the day when he killed four pirates with his bare hands and saved dear old E__ in the nick of time.

5. The problem of what his relative by marriage had done with the fatal letter was one which for two weeks and more had never been out of F__’s thoughts … That he would bury the document on an island, like a pirate of the Spanish Main disposing of his treasure, had never occurred to F__.

Bonus point: Who suggested that who should go to a dance dressed as a Pirate Chief?

Round 370 - 22 September 2008

Parrots

1. ... The memory of that vigil had seared A__'s soul deeply, and the recollection of the long green snake which he had suddenly found nestling in his lap was destined to haunt him for many days.

Eventually the realisation that Mr B__, in his low fashion, had sent them to a false address had dawned upon them both at about the same time; and they had gone away, pursued to the last by the owner of the shop, who wanted to do a sacrifice deal on a parrot. The last they had seen of him before threading their way through the local murderers and starting back to civilisation, he was standing in the street with the parrot on his shoulder, doing some spirited price-cutting.

2. As he led the way into the living-room, shuffling along like a Volga boatman, a genial voice with a rather nasal intonation cried "Hello!". And C__ perceived a handsome parrot in a cage on the table.

"I didn't know you had a parrot," he said.

"I didn't know it myself till this morning," said D__. "It suddenly arrived out of the unknown. A man in a sweater came in a van and left it. He insisted that I had ordered it. Damn fool. Do I look like a man who orders parrots?"

3. At this point the hat-box, which had hitherto not spoken, uttered a crisp, sailorly oath, and followed it up by singing the opening bars of "Annie Laurie." ...

"For Gord's sake!" ejaculated E__.

"Have a nut," observed the hat-box, hospitably. "Have a nut."

E__'s panic subsided.

"It's a bird, sir. A parrot!"

"What the deuce does does F__ mean ... by cluttering up my rooms with his beastly parrots?"

4. ... There came through the darkness a curious noise like the drawing of a cork, and then somebody spoke.

"Who are you?" said an unpleasant, guttural voice ... This voice was the voice of one without human pity: a grating, malevolent voice ...

"Who are you?"

Mrs G__ gulped.

"I am Mrs G__," she faltered ...

"Who are you?" ...

Annoyance began to compete with Mrs G__'s terror ...

"I have already informed you that I am Mrs G__ ..."

"Have a nut," said the voice, changing the subject.

Mrs G__'s teeth came together with a sharp click. All the other emotions which had been afflicting her passed abruptly away to be succeeded by a cold fury. Few things are more mortifying to a proud woman than the discovery that she had been wasting her time being respectful to a parrot; and only her inability to locate the bird in the surrounding blackness prevented a rather unpleasant brawl.

5. "A friend of mine, a rhythmical interior decorator, once rashly consented to put his aunt's parrot up at his studio while she was away visiting friends in the north of England. She was a woman of strong evangelical views, which the bird had imbibed from her. It had a way of putting its head on one side, making a noise like someone drawing a cork from a bottle, and asking my friend if he was saved. To cut a long story short, I happened to call on him a month later, and he had installed a harmonium in his studio and was singing hymns, ancient and modern, in a rich tenor, while the parrot, standing on one leg on its perch, took the bass. A very sad affair."

Bonus point: Which one of the following differs from the others, and how? Sir Aylmer Bostock; Lord Brancaster; Nelly Bryant; Marion Henderson; Col. Pashley-Drake; Mr Roddis; Seabury (son of Lady Chuffnell); and Wilfred Waterson.