Vegetarians

The office-boy, who liked atmosphere … thought for a moment of saying that, beyond the obvious facts that the caller was a Freemason, left-handed, a vegetarian and a traveller in the East, he had made no deductions from his appearance.

– Summer Lightning, Chapter 4

How good are you at spotting vegetarians? Name the vegetarians in passages #1-3, and the counterparts of Othello and Desdemona in #4.

1. “I’m afraid you won’t enjoy being at A__. The place is run on the strictest vegetarian principles.”

“This is grave news.”

“B__ is a fanatic on the subject … The programme calls for high thinking, tribal dances, and, above all, vegetarianism.”

2. “I regret to inform you, sir, that C__ has insisted on D__ adopting a vegetarian diet. His mood is understandably disgruntled and rebellious.” …

“She’s made him become a vegetarian?”

“So D__ has informed me, sir.”

“No chops?”

“No, sir.”

“No steaks?”

“No,sir.”

“Just spinach and similar garbage?”

“So I gather, sir.”

A few pages later, the sufferer gives a first-hand account:

He plunged without delay into as forceful a denunciation of the vegetable world as I’ve heard, oddly enough being more bitter about Brussels sprouts and broccoli than about spinach, which I would have expected him to feature.

3. “I’m not a rabbit,” he said.

E__ could make nothing of this cryptic remark …

“Did someone say you were?” he asked, groping.

“F__ appeared to think so. Carrots!” said G__ morosely. “Bran pudding. Lettuce …”

Illumination came to E__ …

“Did he take you to that health food place of his?”

“He did, blister his insides.”

“He’s a vegetarian.”

“He’s a pain in the neck.”

4. I must say I saw the girl’s viewpoint. It’s only about once in a lifetime that anything sensational ever happens to one, and when it does, you don’t want people taking all the colour out of it. I remember at school having to read that stuff where that chap, Othello, tells the girl what a hell of a time he’d been having among the cannibals and what not. Well, imagine his feelings if, after he had described some particularly sticky passage with a cannibal chief and was waiting for the awe-struck “Oh-h! Not really?” she had said that the whole thing had no doubt been greatly exaggerated, and that the man had probably really been a prominent local vegetarian.

Bonus point 1: Name the magazine that published an article claiming that “vegetarianism was an absolute vital essential prerequisite to a new order of civilisation in which humanity will have become truly humane”.

Bonus point 2: Name a golfer who was a teetotal vegetarian (and played a steady game, presumably because of “the essential vitamins in the grated carrots”).

Round 392 - 16 April 2009

A Better Use for Vegetables

1. “Well, we buzzed along as well as we could, and we had just got to that bit about digesting the venom of your spleen though it do split you, when the proletariat suddenly started bunging vegetables.”

“Vegetables?”

“Turnips, mostly, as far as I could gather. Now, do you see the significance of that, A__?”

“How do you mean, the significance?”

“Well, obviously these blighters had come prepared.”

2. “He stood at the window, throwing potatoes at me. I had hardly knocked at the door, when he was there at the window, throwing potatoes at me. Wouldn’t come out like a man and let me get at him. Just stood at the window, throwing potatoes.” …

B__ was staring with his left eye. The other had now closed like some tired flower at nightfall. I couldn’t help feeling that C__ must have been a jolly good shot to have plugged him so squarely. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to hit a fellow in the eye with a potato at longish range. I know, because I’ve tried it. The very nature of the potato, it being a rummy shape and covered with knobs, renders accurate aiming a tricky business.

3. Bottleton East is crammed from end to end with costermongers dealing in tomatoes, potatoes, Brussels sprouts and fruits in their season, and it is a very negligent audience that forgets to attend a place of entertainment with full pockets.

Vegetables of all kinds now began to fill the air, and D__, abandoning his Art as a wash-out, sought refuge behind the piano … Forty seconds later, he was in the wings, brushing a tomato off his coat.

4. … And then they passed beyond mere words and began to introduce the vegetable motif.

I don’t know why, but somehow I had got it into my head that the first thing thrown at E__ would be a potato. One gets these fancies. It was, however, as a matter of fact, a banana … and the moment I saw that banana splash on E__’s shirtfront I realised how infinitely more effective and artistic it was than any potato could have been.

Not that the potato school of thought had not also its supporters. As the proceedings warmed up I noticed several intelligent-looking fellows who threw nothing else … The last seen of [E__], he was beating a tomato to the exit by a short head.

Bonus point 1: Identify Wodehouse stories in which tomatoes are thrown at (a) a cyclist and (b) a bridegroom.

Bonus point 2: Identify the characters below:

X__ was pointing dramatically.

“He threw cucumber sandwiches at Y__!”

Round 393 - 27 April 2009

Oh, Woman, Woman!

“No wonder they say ‘Oh, woman, woman!’”

“Who?”

“The chaps who do.”

– Right Ho, Jeeves; Chapter 19

We have some examples of some chaps who do for you to identify this week.

1. “Oh, woman, woman!” I threw in helpfully.

“Always interfering! (…) I shan’t stand it. (…) Look here! On the next page she calls me a gaby! (…) And in the very next sentence refers to me as a perfect guffin. What’s a guffin, __(A)__, old boy?”

I considered the point.

“Broadly speaking, I should say, one who guffs.”

(A little later, as the following extract will show, our friend (A) was no longer in a mocking mood.)

Oh, woman, woman!

At the bottom of everything! History is full of tragedies caused by the lethal sex. Who lost Mark Antony the world? A woman. Who let Samson in so atrociously? Woman again. Why did Bill Bailey leave home? Once more, because of a woman. And here was I, __(A)__, (…) going through the same old mill.

2. “When you went to stay with the __(B)__s, you were engaged to me. Do you mean to say you broke off your engagement to me, met this __(C)___, and got engaged to him all in the course of a single visit lasting barely two weeks?”

“Yes.”

__(D)__ said nothing. It struck him later that he should have said “Oh, Woman, Woman!” but at the moment it did not occur to him.

3. (Here we have another young man who has just received a letter announcing the end of his engagement.)

“Well, __(E)__, my boy, (…) Time to dress for dinner, I think. Eh? Eh?”

He was plainly in high good-humour. The thought of the distinguished company he was to entertain that night had changed him temporarily, as with some wave of a fairy wand, into a thing of joviality and benevolence. One could almost hear the milk of human kindness gurgling and splashing within him. The irony of Fate! Tonight – such was his mood – a dutiful nephew could have come and felt his pockets and helped himself – if circumstances had been different. Oh, woman, woman, how you bar us from Paradise!

__(E)__ gurgled a wordless reply, thrusting the fateful letter into his pocket. He would break the news anon – soon. Not yet – later on; in fact, anon.

4. As I walked, I was thinking hard and bitter thoughts of __(F)__, the fons et origo, if you know what I mean by fons et origo, of all the trouble. It was she who, by shamelessly flirting with him, by persistently giving him the flashing smile and the quick sidelong look out of the corner of the eye, had taken __(G)__’s mind off the job (…). Oh, Woman, Woman, I said to myself, not for the first time, feeling that the sooner the sex was suppressed, the better it would be for all of us.

5. Silence fell. __(H)__ was feeling hurt and bewildered. He could not understand her mood. He had come up expecting to be soothed and comforted and she was like a petulant iceberg. Cynically, he recalled some lines of poetry which he had had to write out a hundred times on one occasion at school as punishment for having introduced a white mouse into chapel.

“Oh, woman in our hours of ease,
Un-something, something, something, please.
When tiddly-umpty umpty brow,
A something, something, something thou!”

He had forgotten the exact words, but the gist of it had been that Woman, however she might treat a man in times of prosperity, could be relied on to rally round and do the right thing when he was in trouble. How little the poet had known woman.

Round 394 - 6 May 2009

You Simply Hit Them With an Axe

“When government assessors call
To try and sneak your little all,
You simply hit them with an axe,
That's how you pay your income tax
In Bongo! It's on the Congo!
And I wish that I was there!”

April was income tax filing month for many of us and, as the above extract from the 1924 Wodehouse-Kern-Bolton musical Sitting Pretty shows, it was a topic that fascinated Wodehouse in much the same way that rose-slugs, rose-beetles, and thrips fascinated Lord Marshmoreton.

1. “What’s she going to London for in weather like this? Silly idea.”

“She has a fitting. Her dress for the County Ball. And __(A)__ has to see his lawyer about his income tax.”

“Income tax!” cried __(B)__, starting like a war horse at the sound of a bugle. Pigs and income tax were the only two subjects that really stirred him.

“I haven’t time to listen,” said __(C)__, and swept from the room. These chats with the head of the family nearly always ended in her sweeping from the room. Unless, of course, they took place out of doors, when she merely swept away.

(Quizmaster’s note: In my copy of the book (B) was “staring like a war horse”, but I fancy that is what Wodehouse would call a Printer’s Error.)

2. In every chronicle of the rather intricate nature of the one which is here being related, there occurs a point where the conscientious historian finds it expedient to hold a sort of parade or inspection of the various actors in the drama which he is unfolding. It serves to keep the records straight, and is a convenience to a public to whom he wants to do the square thing – affording as it does a bird’s-eye view of the position of affairs to those of his readers who, through no fault of their own, are not birds. (…)

__(D)__ was in the office of her lawyer in London. His operations on her behalf in the matter of evasion of English Income Tax had dissatisfied her, and she was talking pretty straight to him.

3. These times in which we live are not good times for Earls. Theirs was a great racket while it lasted, but the boom days are over. A scattered few may still have a pittance, but the majority, after they have paid their income tax and their land tax and all their other taxes, and invested in one or two of the get-rich-quick schemes thrown together for their benefit by bright-eyed gentlemen in the City, are generally pretty close to the bread line. Lord __(E)__, with two and eightpence in his pocket, was more happily situated than most.

4. Until the advent of this man __(F)__, (…), Fortune seemed to have lavished her favours on my nephew __(G)__ in full and even overflowing measure. Handsome, like all the __(G)__s, he possessed in addition to good looks the inestimable blessings of perfect health, a cheerful disposition, and so much money that Income-Tax assessors screamed with joy when forwarding Schedule D to his address.

5. (Who devised the following get-rich-quick scheme?)

“We advertise in all the local papers that we are willing for a small fee to give advice in matters of the heart, and we tell the boy how to proceed. We guide his steps and warn him against pitfalls. The girl, too. We put her straight on all her little difficulties. Should a lady shake hands or bow on parting from a gentleman whom she has met only once? Can a gentleman present a lady with a pound of chocolates without committing himself to anything unduly definite? Must Mother always come along? Do you say ‘Miss Jones – Mr Smith’ or ‘Mr Smith – Miss Jones’ when introducing friends? And arising from that, does Mr Smith on such an occasion say ‘Pleased to meet you’ or ‘Happy, I’m sure’? At half a crown a go we should be pulling the stuff in, and no income tax to pay, for all transactions would be carried through in untraceable postal orders. And we should require for the preliminary disbursements not more than about a hundred quid, if that. Do I see you reaching for your chequebook and fountain pen?”

6. And, for a bonus point, identify the characters under discussion in the following sentence: A head waiter makes good money, but he can always do with a devoted son who pays surtax.

Round 395 - 15 May 2009

Summer Moonshine

This week’s topic was suggested by my attendance at a recent performance of Richard Strauss’s Salome, an opera in which several characters, all of them certifiably insane, seemed to be obsessed with the moon. And, by way of a helpful hint, there’s no need to skim through your copy of the novel Summer Moonshine as it is not one of this week’s sources.

1. A man, I felt, who could stay indoors cataloguing vases while his fiancée wandered in the moonlight with explorers deserved all that was coming to him.

2. “Going out for a little walk, Mr Ah?” he said.

__(A)__ said that he was, adding in rather a defensive way that it was such a swell night.

“Beautiful,” agreed __(B)__, and then, for he was a man who always liked to make his meaning quite clear, added, “Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. There is a moon,” he went on, directing his young friend’s attention to this added attraction with a wave of the hand.

__(A)__ said he had noticed the moon.

“Bright,” said __(B)__.

“Very bright,” said __(A)__.

“Very bright, indeed,” said __(B)___. “Oh, extremely bright. Are you,” he asked, changing the subject, “interested in pigs, Mr Er – Ah – Umph?”

3. It was impossible to ascertain whether a blush mantled __(C)__’s cheek, for in its normal state it was ruddier than a cherry, but he unquestionably looked coy. It would not be too much to say that he simpered. He murmured something about Ah, those moonlight nights and when __(D)__ said Ah, what moonlight nights? explained that he was alluding to the moonlight nights when he and this Mrs __(E)__ – a widow of some years standing – had walked together on the boat deck. It was at the conclusion of one of these promenades, he added, that he had asked her to be his wife, and she had replied that the only obstacle standing in the way of the suggested merger was his adipose deposit. She refused, she said, to walk up the aisle with a human hippopotamus.

4. The air was fragrant with the scents of summer and a full moon cast black shadows on the terrace. He had reached the steps that led to it and was thinking that twenty years ago he would have slept out in the open on a night like this, when a voice from the darkness uttered the word “Hi!” causing him to leap like a lamb in springtime and lose the thread of his thoughts.

He had no difficulty in identifying the speaker. Only one member of the Hall circle would have opened the conversation with that monosyllable. (…)

She came down the steps, and his heart gave a leap. Moonlight seldom fails to enhance a beautiful woman’s beauty, and she had never looked so alluring. It suddenly flashed upon him with all the abruptness of a revelation that the restless feeling her society had been causing him these last days was love. It was an emotion he had experienced once or twice before in his youth, but then his fancy had generally turned to dumb blondes. Now middle-aged and capable of maturer judgement, he could see how vastly superior was the intelligent brunette.

5. He was a man who since the death of his wife twenty years ago had made something of a lifework of avoiding women. (…) To __(F)__, however, he had felt from the start strangely drawn. He admired her looks. Her personality appealed to him. “Alluring” was the word that suggested itself. When he caught __(F)__’s eye, it was as though he had caught the eye of a woman who was silently saying “Come up and see me some time” and this – oddly enough – struck him as an admirable idea. So now he pottered out on to the terrace in the hope of a pleasant exchange of views with her.

But these things never work out perfectly. Here was the terrace, bathed in moonlight, and here was she, bathed in moonlight, too, but here in addition, he now saw, was __(G)__, also bathed in moonlight, and the sight brought a quick “Oh, ah” to his lips. The presence of a third party chilled his romantic mood.

6. For your bonus point this week, can you identify at least one character whose appearance has been compared to “the Taj Mahal by moonlight”? (There may be more examples but your Quizmaster can think of three, not counting the Empress of Blandings in Chapter 12 of Sunset at Blandings, which isn’t quite an exact match.)

Round 396 - 27 May 2009

Codes and Ciphers

“Cipher telegram signed by you has reached me here. Runs ‘Lay off the sausages. Avoid the ham.' Wire key immediately. Fink-Nottle.
“Also Kidneys. Cheerio. Bertie.”

Puzzling communications, both written and verbal, are this week’s quiz theme. Can you identify the communicators and the usually puzzled person on the receiving end?

1. Ariosto totem with lingfear.

2. She clutched my arm and lowering her voice to a sinister whisper said, “Has he brought it yet?”

I missed her drift by a wide margin. I like to think of myself as a polished man of the world who can kid back and forth with a pretty girl as well as the next chap, but I must confess that my only response to this query was a silent goggle. It struck me as unusual that a vicar’s daughter should be a member of a secret society, but I could think of no other explanation for her words. They had sounded like a secret code, the sort of thing you haven’t a hope of making sense of if you aren’t a unit of The Uncanny Seven in good standing with all your dues paid up.

3. A voice from the darkness said, “Een gonyâma-gonyâma.”

“Invooboo,” replied the sentry argumentatively. “Yah bô! Yah bô! Invooboo.”

4. “Meredith elephant kangaroo …”

5. And, for this week’s bonus point, identify the (X) who was the recipient of the following rather cryptic message?

To __(X)__

Stark winds
And sunset over the moors
Why?
Whither?
Whence?
And the roll of distant drums

Round 397 - 3 June 2009

English as a Second Language

This round does not exactly deal with coded messages, like the ones to which Ian treated us last week, but the words uttered by the characters below do have something cryptic. Possibly because these persons are not native speakers – or pretending not to be ...

1. "Have you met many of our great public men?"

"Yais – yais – Quite a few of the nibs – Lloyid Gorge, I meet him. But –" Beneath the matting a discontented expression came into his face, and his voice took on a peevish note. "But I not meet your real great men – your Arbmishel, your Arreevadon – I not meet them. That's what gives me the pipovitch."

2. She withdrew, and after a bit a footman of sorts appeared – a Filipino, apparently, by the look of him. And conceive my emotion when I observed that on the tray which he carried there was nothing but a few dry biscuits, a glass of milk, and a saucerful of foul prunes.

Well, I tried to reason with the man, pointing out the merits of chump chops and steak puddings, but all he would say was "Excuse, yes", and "Very good, hullo", and "No, perhaps, also", and a lot of rot like that, so eventually I dismissed him with a weary gesture.

3. It was his practice, when walking in London, to look hopefully about him on the chance of exciting things happening. Nothing of the slightest interest had ever happened yet, and he had sometimes felt discouraged. But Bond Street restored his optimism. [...]

Up and down the narrow street expensive automobiles were rolling, and the pavements were full of expensive-looking pedestrians. One of these had just elbowed C___ towards the gutter, when he became aware that a two-seater had stopped beside him. The next moment its occupant was addressing him in a strong foreign accent.

"Pardon me, but is it that you could dee-reck-ut me to Less-ess-ter Skervare?"

C___ looked up. [...] It was a rather shocking-looking bounder with prominent eyebrows and a black beard of Imperial cut.

4. And now, in the small hours, sitting smoking at his window, he was surprised and a little revolted to find that the agony had abated to so noticeable an extent that it was only by prodding his wounded soul that he could still succeed in feeling adequately miserable.

This change of mood puzzled him. It would not have puzzled D___.

"The long and muscle-exercising walk concluded," writes D___, "and the subject having to his room in much physical exhaustion returned, it now frequently happens that he will in a chair with his feet up sit and a pipe light, and in 65.09 per cent of cases examined it has been established that at this point he will with clarity and a sudden falling of scales from the eyes the position of affairs re-examine ..."

For a bonus point: who was the recipient of the following epistle and where was it sent from?

"Dear Sir, I have heard your name and address highly have been recommended to me by a certain friend of mine that you are the best merchant in your city London. So I want you to send me one of your best catalogue and I am ready to deal with you until I shall go into the grave. Soon as possible send me early. I remain, Yours very good trully."

Round 398 - 12 June 2009

English for Advanced Learners

Laughter, as we all know, is a defence against a defence. Both manoeuvres, if you follow me, are instituted by the subconscious ego. The cruelty of the – ah – superego is counteracted by changing punishment into inner pleasure. The good old superego reproaches the ego for the inner pleasure, and the ego then institutes two new defences, the triad of the mechanism of orality and laughter. Anyway, your quizmaster thought some humour could be derived this week from studying several other cases of technical English in the Wodehouse canon. Can you identify the erudite speakers?

1. "Now pay attention. Play ball! Pitcher's winding up. Put it over, Mike, put it over! Some speed, kid! Here it comes right in the groove. Bing! Batter slams it and streaks for first. Outfielder – this lump of sugar – boots it. Bonehead! Batter touches second. Third? No! Get back! Can't be done. Play it safe. Stick round the sack, old pal. Second batter up. Pitcher getting something on the ball now beside the cover. Whiffs him. Back to the bench, Cyril! Third batter up. See him rub his hands in the dirt. Watch this kid. He's good! Let's two alone, then slams the next right on the nose. Whizzes round to second. First guy, the one we left on second, comes home for one run. That's a game! Take it from me, Bill, that's a game!"

2. "Why is it," asked the girl, "that, when you get a speck of dust in your eye the size of a pin-point, it seems as big as all out-doors?"

A___ could answer that. The subject was one he had studied.

"The conjunctiva, a layer of mucous membrane which lines the back of the eyelids and is reflected on to the front of the globe, this reflection forming the fornix, is extremely sensitive. This is especially so at the point where the tarsal plates of fibrous tissue are attached to the orbital margin by the superior and inferior palpebral ligaments."

"I see, " said the girl.

3. "Beyond a question one senses in the patine a lack of vitality. And vitality must never be sacrificed. The artist should use his palette as an orchestra. He should put on his colours as a great conductor uses his instruments. There must be significant form. The colour must have a flatness, a gravity, shall I say an aroma? The figure must be placed on the canvas in a manner not only harmonious but awake. Only so can a picture quite too exquisitely live."

4. With the fish, B___ began to tell a neat, though rather long, story about C___ [name of company], the gist of which was that D___ [name of syndicate] [...] would have a capital of one million dollars in two hundred thousand five-dollar 'A' shares and two hundred thousand half-dollar 'B' shares, and that while no cash payment was to be made to the vendor syndicate the latter was being allotted the whole of the 'B' shares as consideration for the concession. And – this was where the raconteur made his point – the 'B' shares were to receive half the divisible profits and to rank equal with the 'A' shares in any distribution of assets.

The story went well, and conversation became general. There was a certain amount of good-natured chaff about the elasticity of the form of credit handled by the Commercial Banks, and once somebody raised a laugh with a sly retort about the Reserve against Circulation and Total Deposits. On the question of the collateral liability of shareholders, however, argument ran high, and it was a relief when, as tempers began to get a little heated, E___ gave the signal and the women left the table.

For a bonus point: what is the first name of the clever little blighter in the next passage?

"See papa! [...] I see that Gifts (not made as a consideration for service rendered) and money and property acquired under a will or inheritance (but the income derived from money or property received by gift, will, or inheritance) are, according to Sub-Sec 2439, not subject to tax, and the way it looks to me is that you can knock off the price of the bullfinch's birdseed."

Round 399 - 20 June 2009

English for Purists

Third and final part of our mini-series about the English language. A sequel, in fact, to Round 261.

1. "Good afternoon," said A___. "Are you the gentleman?"

This perplexed B___.

"Eh?" he said. "What gentleman?"

"The gentleman I've brought the trousers for." Blushing a little at having ended a sentence with a preposition, A___ corrected himself. "The gentleman for whom I have brought the trousers."

2. "Pants? What are you doing with my pants?"

Even in this supreme moment, C___ could not let this pass. "Trousers," she corrected. [...]

"I wanted them for someone."

"Oh, yes? Who did you want them for?"

"Whom," corrected C___.

3. "Why don't you give it to me?"

D___ stared.

"You, sir?"

"It's the only way," said E___, becoming more and more enthusiastic about the idea. "Put yourself in the place of these spies. They'll soon find out old F___ hasn't got this document, and then they'll start asking themselves what he's done with it, and it won't take them long to realise that he must have handed it on to someone. Then what'll they say? They'll say 'To who?'"

"Whom," murmured D___ mechanically. He was rather a purist.

4. Of all his many nieces G___ was fondest of H___. She was pretty, a girl whom it was a pleasure to take to race meetings and garden parties, and she had that animation which in his younger days he had found so attractive in music hall artistes and members of the personnel of the chorus.

This animation was missing now. [...]

"What on earth's the matter?" he asked. [...]

"I'm all right, except that I wish I was dead."

"Were dead, surely," said G___, who was a purist.

5. "All this noise!" he said. "One realises that actors have to make a living, but there is no need for a lot of racket and disturbance. It is most disagreeable for a man doing his crossword puzzle and trying to concentrate on a word in three letters beginning with E and signifying 'large Australian bird' to be distracted by sudden sharp cries [...]"

I knew it could not be the sun God Ra. Then suddenly I got it.

"Emu!"

"I beg your pardon?"

"That large Australian bird you were speaking of."

"Of which you were speaking. Never end a sentence with a preposition, J___."

Round 400 - 29 June 2009

Quizzes (or Probes)

For the 400th edition of our beloved quiz, a ... quizzical theme seemed just what the doctor ordered.

1. Some of its questions could be answered off-hand, others required thought.
"Height?" Simple. Five feet eleven.

"Hair?" Simple. Brown.

"Eyes?" Simple again. Blue.

Next queries of a more offensive kind.

"Are you a polygamist?"

He could answer that. Decidedly no. One wife would be ample, provided she had red-gold hair, brown-gold eyes, the right kind of mouth and a dimple. Whatever doubts there might be in his mind on other points, on that one he had none whatever.

"Have you ever been in prison?"

Not yet.

And then a very difficult one. "Are you a lunatic?"

A___ hesitated. The ink dried on his pen. He was wondering.

2. He was a massive bloke, and there was something in his appearance that seemed familiar. Then, as I narrowed my gaze and scanned him more closely, memory did its stuff. That beefy frame ... That pumpkin-shaped head ... The face that looked like a slab of pink dough ... It was none other than my old friend, B___. And what he was doing, pirouetting outside jewellery bins, was more than I could understand.

I started across the road with the idea of instituting a probe or quiz ...

3. "C___ was a very wealthy woman."

"I know. I used to have to write all the letters about her investments."

"You were employed by her?"

"For two years, as a secretary."

"And your relations were always friendly?"

"I was telling D___ that she was more like a sort of aunt than an employer."

"Then that accounts for it."

"It?"

"You are the daughter of E___, vicar of F___?"

"In the county of G___? I certainly am."

"May I see that birth certificate for a moment?"

"Here it is."

"Seems all in order, and as there must be dozens of people in F___ who will vouch for you, there doesn't appear to be any need for a lengthy ... what's the word?"

"Quiz?"

"Yes, quiz."

4. "I thought he suspected H___."

"Originally, yes, sir. And it is still his view that H___ was the motivating force behind the theft. But he now believes that the young lady must have had a male accomplice, who did the rough work. J___, I understand, supports him in this theory."

I suddenly remembered the opening passages of my interview with J___ in the library, and at last got on to what he had been driving at. Those remarks of his which had seemed to me then mere idle gossip had had, I now perceived, a sinister undercurrent of meaning. I had supposed that we were just two of the boys chewing over the latest bit of hot news, and all the time the thing had been a probe or quiz.

5. K___ was the first to speak. A lesser man would have been taken aback by the spectacle of this majestic woman with a mud pack on her face, but he was not a lesser man.

"Hoy!" he said. "Where's L___'s room, M___?"

She answered question with question.

"What in the world are you doing, K___, wandering about the house at this time of night?"

K___ had a short way with this sort of thing. He had not climbed two flights of stairs to take part in a quiz show.