Money in (or out of) the Bank

“Good heavens, what is this place, a thieves’ kitchen? My brother robs the bank, my nurse robs the bank, my butler robs the bank, my nephew robs the bank, his secretary robs the bank –”

“And you'd have robbed the bank if you hadn't been laid up with a broken leg.”

– Do Butlers Burgle Banks?, Chapter 13

Banks have been in the news recently, some in worse shape even than Bond’s Bank. But one bank in Wodehouse’s world lasted many decades, despite several people’s making withdrawals without having accounts there.

1. “I should like to hear,” said A__ amusedly, as one who draws out an intelligent child, “how you would set about burgling one of those up-town villas. My own work has been on a somewhat larger scale and on the other side of the Atlantic.”

“De odder side?”

“I have done as much in London as anywhere else,” said A__. “A great town, London, full of opportunities for the fine worker. Did you hear of the cracking of the New Asiatic Bank in Lombard Street?”

“No, boss,” whispered B__. “Was dat you?”

A__ laughed.

“The police would like an answer to the same question,” he said, self-consciously.

2. It was at Barolini’s Italian restaurant in Beak Street that C__ evolved his great scheme … There were present that night, besides C__ … the following men-about-town: D__, the actor, fresh from a six-weeks’ tour with the Number Three “Only a Shop-Girl” Company; E__, the artist … F__, author of Ashes of Remorse, and other unproduced motion-picture scenarios; and G__, who, being employed at a salary of eighty pounds per annum by the New Asiatic Bank, represented the sober, hard-headed commercial element.

3. “…He insisted on my going into a bank.”

“But what had he to do with it?”

“Unfortunately, when my aunt made her will, leaving all she had to me, he persuaded her to leave it in trust, making him my trustee. So he was in a position to dictate. He said I was wasting my time painting pictures which nobody would buy and ought to be embarking on a business career like every other young man. So he put me in the New Asiatic Bank, of which he is a director. I could see his point of view. I’m not saying I liked it, but I could see it”

4. “What are you doing here? What have you come for?”

“Work,” said H__, with simple dignity. “I am now a member of the staff of this bank. Its interests are my interests. H__, the individual, ceases to exist, and there springs into being H__, the cog in the wheel of the New Asiatic Bank; H__, the link in the bank’s chain; H__, the Worker. I shall not spare myself,” he proceeded earnestly. “I shall toil with all the accumulated energy of one who, up till now, has only known what work is like from hearsay.”

5. In the letter which, after carefully memorising it, he had just as carefully destroyed, J__ had revealed that the proceeds of his flutter with the New Asiatic Bank might be found not in the cistern but rather by anyone who procured a chisel and raised the third board from the window in the top back room.

6. “He robbed the New Asiatic Bank of a hundred thousand dollars, jumped his bail, and was never heard of again.” …

K__ glowed. He could not restrain his sympathy and admiration. True, the man was a criminal. He had robbed a bank of a hundred thousand dollars. But, after all, what was that? They would probably have wasted the money in foolishness. And, anyway, a bank which couldn’t take care of its money deserved to lose it.

K__ felt almost a righteous glow of indignation against the New Asiatic Bank.

Round 422 - 13 January 2010

Coal Cellars

"I will follow you to the ends of the earth," replied Susan, passionately.

"It will not be necessary," said George. "I am only going down to the coal-cellar. I shall spend the next half-hour or so there."

– "The Truth about George"

Though George Mulliner visits a coal cellar voluntarily, most Wodehouse characters have coal cellars thrust upon them, including Samuel Galer, Judson Phipps, and those described in the following passages. Identify them (or, in #4, name F).

1. "A__," she hissed, as far as a woman, even of her intellectual gifts, is capable of hissing the word A__, "why didn't you come when I rang?"

"I did not hear the bell, madam. I was –"

"You must have heard the bell."

"No, madam."

"Why not?"

"Because I was in the coal-cellar, madam."

"What on earth were you doing in the coal-cellar?"

"I was induced to go there, madam, by a man. He intimidated me with a pistol."

2. B__ was not looking his best. You cannot spend several hours in a coal cellar and be spruce. There was grime both on his hands and on his face. His cheerfulness, however, remained undiminished.

"Good evening," he said. "I must apologise for appearing before you like this, but my suggestion of a wash and a brush up was vetoed by our good friend here. He seemed to think that speed was of the essence."

"You'll get a bath in prison," Mrs C__ pointed out ...

"First, however, I would like to acquit my room-mate of the coal cellar of any complicity in this affair. He was merely a crony I had brought in for a smoke and a chat, and nobody more surprised than himself when he discovered that he was being held up with guns and placed among the anthracite."

3. "I sent him to D__ Hall on a secret mission, the nature of which I am not empowered to disclose, and how he managed to get copped we shall never know. Suffice it that he did and is now in the cellar. Wine or coal?"

"Coal, I was given to understand, sir."

"Our task, then, is to get him out of it. Don't speak. I must think, I must think."

When an ordinary man is trying to formulate a scheme for extricating his brother from a coal cellar, the procedure is apt to be a lengthy one involving the furrowed brow, the scratched head and the snapped finger, but in the case of a man like E___ this is not so.

4. The magnate waved a weary hand.

"Leave me," he said. "I am thinking."

"I thought you would like to know," said F__, "that I've just locked those cops in the coal-cellar."

5. "And where is the fellow now?"

"Temporarily incarcerated in the coal-cellar, m'lord."

"Bring him to me at once." ...

There was a scuffling of feet, and the prisoner at the bar entered, trailing like clouds of glory G__, first footman, attached to his right arm, and H__, second footman, clinging like a limpet to his left.

"Good God!" cried J__, startled out of his judicial calm. "What a horrible-looking brute!"

Bonus point: Name the man and woman who become engaged while locked together in a coal cellar (or, at least, a cellar containing coal).

Round 423 - 21 January 2010

Curses!

“I was a child at the time, but I can recall it so distinctly. Father thumping tables, Mother weeping, and all that rather charming, old-world atmosphere of family curses.”
– The Reminiscences of Lady Julia Fish (Heavy Weather)

Below you will find a sampling of curses in Wodehouse (though for reasons of space I have omitted the curse of the Byngs, curse of the Pirbrights, and the curse of the Widgeons).

1. It was not only the sickening vanity of the fellow – come and applaud him, forsooth! Why couldn’t he be content like a true artist to give of his best and care nothing for the world’s applause or censure? – it was something deeper than that. We all have a grain of superstition in us, and it had begun to seem to A__ that there was something eerie and uncanny in the way this B__ kept cropping up in his path. It was like one of those Family Curses. Where the What-d’you-call-’ems had their Headless Monk and the Thingummybobs their Spectral Hound, he had B__.

2. “He seemed sorry that there wasn’t any snow, so that he couldn’t drive his erring daughter out into it. He says I mustn’t speak to you or C__ or D__ or E__ – not that I want to speak to E__, the little blighter – nor your ox nor your ass nor anything that is within your gates. He’s put a curse on the Hall. It’s one of those comprehensive curses, taking in everything from the family to the mice in the kitchen, and I tell you I’m jolly well fed up.”

3. Years before, when a boy, and romantic as most boys are, F__ had sometimes regretted that the G__s, though an ancient clan, did not possess a Family Curse. How little he had suspected that he was shortly to become the father of it.

4. So he sent a messenger round to Berkeley Square, explaining that he was in jail and hoping his uncle was the same, and presently a letter was brought back by the butler, containing ten pounds in postal orders, the Curse of the H__s, a third-class ticket to H__ Regis in Shropshire and instructions that, as soon as they smote the fetters from his wrists, he was to take the first train there and go and stay at H__ Castle till further notice. Because at the castle, his uncle said in a powerful passage, even a blasted pimply pop-eyed good-for-nothing scalawag and nincompoop like his nephew couldn’t get into mischief and disgrace the family name.

5. Legal red tape prevented J__ doing what he would have liked to do – viz, skin K__ with a rusty knife and dip him in boiling oil, but within his limitations he proposed to deal faithfully with him.

Their relationship of hotel proprietor and guest made it impossible for him to do the same in the case of L__, but he could give him a nasty look, and he did so. It was a look that seemed to bring into the office an Edgar Allan Poe-like atmosphere of wailing winds and family curses.

6. “We had him for lunch,” said M__.

“No, did you?” said N__. “A bit indigestible, what?” He laughed heartily for some moments at his ready wit; then, seeing that the gag had not got across, cheesed it. He remembered now that there had always been something a bit Wednesday-matinee-ish about M__. An austere man, known to his circle of acquaintances as The Curse of the Eastern Counties.

Round 424 - 29 January 2010

Eighth Annual Valentine’s Day Quiz

“I have been married twice.”
“Three times, me,” said Russell Clutterbuck.
– French Leave, Chapter 10

I had a wealthy uncle … He was a great believer in matrimony, as having married three wives – not simultaneously – he had every right to be.
– Love Among the Chickens, Chapter 14

Wodehouse’s men are an example to those of modern times: they are not afraid of commitment. Identify the matrimonial recidivists below.

1. “Did you marry again?”

“Oh yes, here and there. My second wife ran away with a Frenchman.”

“Did you get a divorce?”

“Yes, and married again. My third wife ran away with a Spaniard.”

“Too bad.”

“When I married my fourth wife …”

“Whom did she run away with?”

“A Brazilian.”

“Your home during the last few years seems to have been a sort of meeting place of the nations.”

“Yes.”

“How many wives have you got now?”

“None at the moment. The supply has sort of petered out.”

2. His wife was among the first to land. How beautiful she looked, thought A__, as he watched her. And, alas, how intimidating. His tastes had always lain in the direction of spirited women. His first wife had been spirited. So had the second, third, and fourth. And the one at the moment holding office was perhaps the most spirited of the whole platoon.

3. She emerged with a start from her reverie.

“I was thinking,” she said. “About those wives of yours.”

“What about them?”

“Mrs B__ must be the fourth.”

“Fifth. You’re overlooking Bernadine Friganza.”

“It seems rather a lot.”

“That’s Hollywood. You sort of drift into it. There’s nothing much to do after office hours, so you go out and get married.”

4. Though a man of steel and iron, there was nothing of the celibate about C__. He was one of those men who marry early and often. On three separate occasions … he had jumped off the dock, to scramble back to shore again later by means of the Divorce Court lifebelt. Scattered here and there about the country there were three ex-Mrs C__s, drawing their monthly envelope, and now, it seemed, he contemplated the addition of a fourth to the platoon.

5. Mr D__ was a large, spreading man with a smooth face and very big horn-rimmed spectacles. He had come to reside at the Hall some time back, being indeed one of the earliest of the current generation of squatters. He had been a partner in the fish-glue business from which E__’s first husband had drawn his fortune, and was enormously rich in spite of the inroads made on his income by the platoons of ex-wives to whom he was paying alimony. For, like so many substantial citizens of his native country, he had married young and kept on marrying, springing from blonde to blonde like the chamois of the Alps leaping from crag to crag.

Round 425 - 9 February 2010

Let the Games Commence

The Winter Olympic Games are upon us yet again and provide us with the inspiration for this week’s Wodehouse Quiz. While winter sports are a bit of a rarity in the canon, it is possible to scrape together enough extracts for a Quiz. So, get your skates on and “Hurry, hard!“, as members of the curling fraternity are known to exclaim.

1. “I don’t like to hear of you being lost on desolate ice fields, and leaping from crag to crag, and what not. Some day, mark my words, if you are not careful, you will fall down a precipice, or be overtaken by an avalanche, or the ice will break while you are crossing it. There are a thousand ways in which you might get hurt.”

“A man of ready wit with a quick eye,” replied __(A)__ complacently, “never gets hurt. The mountain has no terror for her children. I am a child of the mountain.”

“You are certainly a child!” snapped __(B)__.

2. “We were in the same hotel in Switzerland last Christmas. I taught him to ski,” she said, a dreamy look coming into her twin starlikes. “I shall never forget the day I helped him unscramble himself after he had taken a toss on the beginners’ slope. He had both legs wrapped round his neck. I think that is when love dawned. My heart melted as I sorted him out.”

3. “What on earth does the fellow want to ski for? Isn’t there enough sadness in life without going out of your way to fasten long planks to your feet and jump off mountains? And don’t forget this – from ski-ing to yodelling is but a short step. Do we want a world full of people going about the place singing, ‘Ti-ra-ra-la-i-te’, or something amounting to very much the same thing? I’ll bet this __(C)__ man of yours is a confirmed yodeller.”

4. “Do you remember the prizes the teacher gave the one who got best marks in the spelling class? And the treats at Christmas, when we all got twelve sticks of striped peppermint candy? And drawing the water out of that well in that old wooden bucket in the winter, and pouring it out in the playground and skating on it when it froze? And wasn‘t it cold in the winter, too! Do you remember the stove in the schoolroom? How we used to crowd round it!”

5. (And now your task is to identify the person who provided the following brief summary of the attractions of ski-ing as a recreation.)

I had two lessons. I didn’t mind the going down, but it seemed to me that nineteen-twentieths of ski-ing was shuffling up hills. And even when you get good, you have to take a train.

6. And, for a bonus point, can you identify the Wodehouse heroine who met her fiancé at a skating rink? Roller or ice skating wasn’t specified in the text but, for purposes of this week’s quiz, we’ll assume it was the latter. The skating rink reference appeared in the magazine serial and the US edition of the book but for some reason was edited out of the British edition of the book.

Round 426 - 17 February 2010

It's the Thought that Counts

Now that Valentine’s Day has come and gone we can all put our feet up and relax, secure in the knowledge that we won’t have to strain our brains trying to come up with another gift idea until the next birthday, anniversary or other special event looms on the horizon. For this week’s Quiz we examine gifts in the canon.

1. The first glimmering of an idea that __(A)__ might possibly be a suitable wife for him had come to __(B)__ some three years before this story opens. Having brooded on the matter tensely for six months, he then sent her a bunch of roses. In the October of the following year, nothing having occurred to alter his growing conviction that she was an attractive girl, he presented her with a two-pound box of assorted chocolates. And from then on his progress, though not rapid, was continuous, and there seemed little reason to doubt that, should nothing come about to weaken __(A)__’s regard for him, another five years or so would see the matter settled.

2. __(C)__ had moved back and given her an uninterrupted view of the work of art, and she had started as if some unkindly disposed person had driven a bradawl into her. (…) __(D)__ did not speak for a moment. It may have been sudden joy that kept her silent. Or, on the other hand, it may not. She stood looking at the picture with wide eyes and parted lips.

(…)

“One moment, darling. I’m not quite sure (…) where it ought to hang. (…) This picture is so – so striking that I feel we ought to wait a little while and decide where it would have its best effect. The light over the piano is rather strong.”

“You think it ought to hang in a dimmish light, what?”

“Yes, yes. The dimmer the – I mean, yes, in a dim light. Suppose we leave it in the corner for the moment – over there – behind the sofa, and – I’ll think it over. It wants a lot of thought, you know. (…) I think perhaps … just turn its face to the wall, will you?” __(D)__ gave a little gulp. “It will prevent it getting dusty.”

3. “Throw your mind back. A rainy afternoon eight years ago. You were sitting at the schoolroom table, covered with glue, poring over your childish collection. I entered and said: ‘Hello, looking at your stamps?’ You came clean. Yes, you said, you were looking at your stamps. ‘You don’t seem to have many,’ I said. ‘Would you like mine?’ adding that I had recently been given an album full of the dam’ things as a birthday present by an uncle who wasn’t abreast of affairs and didn’t know that it was considered bad form at the dear old school to collect stamps. A pastime only fit for kids.”

4. “It’s her birthday next week, Uncle __(E)__, and it crossed my mind that if I could stumble on somebody who could slip me a few quid, something might possibly be done about it, Uncle __(E)__.”

(…)

“Leave it all to me, my boy. (…) Now, let me see, (…) What shall it be? Jewellery? No. Girls like their little bit of jewellery, but perhaps it would scarcely do. I have it. A sundial. (…) What could be a more pretty and tasteful gift? No doubt she has a little garden of her own, some sequestered nook which she tends with her own hands and where she wanders in maiden meditation on summer evenings. If so, she needs a sundial.”

5. “They’ve started giving me presents now. At least, __(F)__ has. He insisted on my accepting this cigarette-case last night. (…) It’s not a bad one, I must say.”

It wasn’t. It was a distinctly fruity concern in gold with a diamond stuck in the middle. And the rummy thing was that I had a notion that I’d seen something very like it before somewhere. How the deuce __(F)__ had been able to dig up the cash to buy a thing like that was more than I could imagine.

6. And, for this week’s Bonus Point, we’re looking for the identity of the recipient of gifts that include a cigarette holder from a reigning monarch and a golden match box from the president of the Amalgamated League of Working Plumbers.

Round 427 - 26 February 2010

Just My Bill

Although the Quiz contestant signing herself “Sally“ might argue the point, Bill was probably Wodehouse’s favourite name for his fictional characters, especially when variations like William, Wilhelmina, etc, are taken into account. And, yes, variations on the theme will feature in some of this week’s questions as we ask you to identify the Bills.

1. One would have said that here was a man with a secret sorrow.

__(A)__ had no secret sorrow. All that he was thinking of at that moment was the best method of laying a golf ball dead in front of the Palace Theatre. It was his habit to pass the time in mental golf when __(B)__ was late in keeping her appointments with him. On one occasion she had kept him waiting so long that he had been able to do nine holes, starting at the Savoy Grill and finishing up near Hammersmith. His was a simple mind, able to amuse itself with simple things.

2. “But what am I to do?”

(…)

__(C)__ seemed to consider.

“No sweet biscuits,” she said. “And when the maid brings you your tea in the morning please do not give him sugar. Simply a little milk in the saucer. He is on a diet. Good night, Mr __(D)__.”

__(D)__ was now pretty well nonplussed. No matter what his hostess might say about [the character with a variation of Bill for his name] being on a diet, he was convinced from its manner that its medical advisor had not forbidden it __(D)__s, and once more he bent his brain to the task of ascertaining what to do next.

3. (Quizmaster’s Note: In this question “X” is a character’s Christian name and “Y” his family name.)

__(E)__ saw that __(F)__ had gotten everything mixed up, as elderly gentlemen will.

“Oh, this chap isn’t really Bill. I believe he was christened __(X)__. But if a fellow’s name is __(Y)__, you’ve more or less got to call him Bill.”

“Of course, noblesse oblige.”

4. A lucky blow appeared to have stunned Mr __(G)__’s beetle, and he was able to give his full attention to the matter in hand. He stared at __(H)__ with considerable distaste.

“I’m on to you, Bill!” he said.

“My name is not Bill,” said __(H)__.

“No,” snapped Mr. __(G)__, his annoyance by this time very manifest. “And it’s not __(I)__.”

(A few pages later Mr G and H were at it again.)

“You take it from me, Bill …”

“You persist in the delusion that my name is William …”

5. The rehearsal went on. The hero got off his lines. There was a slight outburst of frightfulness between the stage-manager and a Voice named Bill that came from somewhere near the roof, the subject under discussion being where the devil Bill’s “ambers” were at that particular juncture.

[Two paragraphs later …] Things had gotten a bit stormy by that time. The Voice and the stage-director had had another of their love-feasts – this time something to do with why Bill’s “blues” weren’t on the job or something.

6. Myself, when I observe __(J, a variation of ’Bill’)__ coming along the street, I cross the road and look into a shop window till he has passed. I am not a snob, but I dare not risk my position in Society by being seen talking to that curious compound.

Nor is the precaution an unnecessary one. There is about __(J)__ a shameless absence of appreciation of class distinctions which recalls the worst excesses of the French Revolution. I have seen him with these eyes chivvy a pomeranian belonging to a baroness in her own right from near the Achilles Statue to within a few yards of the Marble Arch.

And yet __(K)__ walks with him daily in Piccadilly. It is surely significant.

Round 428 - 15 March 2010

Beware the Ides of March

As we commemorate the anniversary of the demise of the noblest Roman of them all, let’s take a moment to examine references in the canon to Julius Caesar, both the man and the play of that title.

1. “There is nothing I want more in this world,” said __(A)__ warmly, “than to have you read my hand.”

“I don’t have to read it to tell your character, of course,” said the girl. “I can see that at a glance.”

“You can?”

“Oh, certainly. You have a strong, dominating nature and a keen incisive mind. You have great breadth of vision, iron determination, and marvellous insight. Yet with it all you are at heart gentle, kind and lovable; deeply altruistic and generous to a fault. You have it in you to be a leader of men. You remind me of Julius Caesar, Shakespeare, and Napoleon Bonaparte.”

2. “I do think it was strange of him to go swimming in the lake with all his clothes on.”

“Did he do that?”

“I saw him from my window.”

“According to Shakespeare, Julius Caesar used to swim with all his clothes on.”

“But he didn’t gather frogs.”

“No, you have a point there. One finds it very difficult to see why __(B)__ should have wanted to gather frogs. Puzzled me a good deal, that.”

3. __(C)__ had come in bearing the elixir, not a split second before we were ready for it. I took the beaker from him and offered it to the aged relative with a courteous gesture. With a brief “Mud in your eye” she drank deeply. I then finished what was left at a gulp.

“Oh, __(C)__,” I said.

“Sir?”

“Lend me your ear.”

“Very good, sir.”

4. Arriving at Paddington, __(D)__ stood on the platform, waiting for his box to emerge from the luggage-van, with mixed feelings of gloom and excitement. The gloom was in the larger quantities, perhaps, but the excitement was there, too. It was the first time in his life that he had been entirely dependent on himself. He had crossed the Rubicon.

5. “Did he by any chance tell you he was Mussolini?”

“He did not.”

“Or Shirley Temple?”

“He told me he was Sir ___(E)___.”

“Then I am in distinguished company. Not that it is anything to joke about, of course. The whole thing is terribly sad and disheartening. Evidently all my work has gone for nothing. It almost makes one lose confidence in oneself.”

“I should not have thought that you were a man who easily lost his self-confidence.”

“Kind of you to say so, my dear fellow. No, as a rule, I do not. But absolute failure like this … Ah, well, one must keep one’s flag flying, must one not? You humoured him, I hope? It is always the best and safest plan. Well, here are my daughter and my nephew __(F)__, who acts as my secretary. This is __(G)__, my dear, __(H)__’s son. And Mr __(I)__. I was telling them that I thought I would walk to the castle. I am feeling a little cramped after the journey. We shall meet at Philippi.”

Round 429 - 22 March 2010

Farmyard Imitations

Imitations have been a quiz theme before, but this time you are requested to switch on the "Old MacDonald" spirit.

1. It was a lovely morning, and, as I bicycled along, keeping a fatherly eye on A___'s activities, I realized for the first time in my life the full meaning of that exquisite phrase of Coleridge:

"Clothing the palpable and familiar With golden exhalations of the dawn,"

for in the pellucid air everything seemed weirdly beautiful, even A___'s heather-mixture knickerbockers, of which hitherto I had never approved. The sun gleamed on their seat, as he bent to make his shots, in a cheerful and almost a poetic way. The birds were singing gaily in the hedgerows, and such was my uplifted state that I, too, burst into song, until A___ petulantly desired me to refrain, on the plea that, though he yielded to no man in his enjoyment of farmyard imitations in their proper place, I put him off his stroke.

2. "I am the Bandolero!" sang B___ blithely through the soap. "I am, I am the Bandolero! Yes, yes, I am the Bandolero!"

The untidy heap of bedclothes in the lower berth stirred restlessly.

"Oh, God!" said C___, thrusting out a tousled head.

B___ regarded his cousin with commiseration. Horrid things had been happening to C___ during the last few days, and it was quite a pleasant surprise each morning to find that he was still alive.

"Feeling bad again, old man?"

"I was feeling all right," replied C___ churlishly, "until you began the farmyard imitations."

3. To D___ five minutes later, as he sat in his room smoking a cigarette and looking dreamily out at the distant hills, there entered E___, who, having closed the door behind him, tottered to the bed and uttered a deep and discordant groan. D___, his mind thus rudely wrenched from pleasant meditations, turned and regarded the gloomy youth with disfavour.

"At any other time, E___," he said politely but with firmness, "certainly. But not now. I am not in the vein."

"What?" said E___ vacantly.

"I say that at any other time I shall be delighted to listen to your farmyard imitations, but not now. At the moment I am deep in thoughts of my own, and I may say frankly that I regard you as more or less of an excrescence. I want solitude, solitude. I am in a beautiful reverie, and your presence jars upon me somewhat profoundly."

4. "And don't come back without a doctor."

"I won't," F___ assured him. "I'll get one if I have to rob a hospital. For the moment, then, laddie, tinkerty-tonk!"

The room now empty, G___ felt more composed. He called sharply to H___, who popped out of the bedroom like a cuckoo from a clock.

"H___!"

"Sir?"

"How is she?"

"Still unconscious, sir. And I don't like her breathing. If you ask me, it's storterous."

"Storterous?"

"Sort of puffy. Like this."

Taking in a supply of air, H___ emitted it in a series of moaning gasps. It was not an inartistic performance, but G___ did not like it.

"H___!"

"Sir?"

"When I want any farm-yard imitations I'll ask for them."

Round 430 - 30 March 2010

Ducks Revisited

Ducks, too, have come under scrutiny before, but this week we shall only examine the healthy, quacking, waddling and non-fictional variant of the species: dying, roast and Donald ducks are formally excluded.

1. "When you came into the office this morning in that blue frock, I thought it was the last word in woman's wear. And now you knock my eye out with this astounding creation. But of course, it isn't the upholstery, it's you. You would look wonderful in anything. Tell me," said A___, "there's a thing I've been waiting to discuss with you ever since we met. Do you believe in love at first sight?"

Once more, B___ had the feeling that the conversation might be changed.

"The ducks nest on that island over there," she said, pointing at a dim mass that loomed amid the shadows of the moat.

"Let them," said A___ cordially.

2. "It's all right, C___ o' man. I am coming to D___."

"You are?"

"Yessir, I can't get there quick enough. And I should be glad if, while I am in residence, you would see that no alcoholic fluid of any description is served to me. I mean this, C___ o' man. I have seen the light." He paused for a moment with a quick shudder, remembering what else he had seen. "And now excuse me. I have to go and look at the ducks on the Serpentine."

"Why do you want to look at the ducks on the Serpentine?"

"There are moments in a man's life, C___ o' fellow," said E___ gravely, "when he has got to look at the ducks on the Serpentine."

3. It is not likely that the name F___ will be familiar to many people today. He wrote only one real success, a farce called G___, and that was a long time ago. Still, G___ brought in a good deal of money, and he was able on his death to leave some of it to his daughters H___, J___ and K___. They bought this L___ [place-name] farm – H___'s idea – and started to keep hens, with bees as a side line. J___ had wanted ducks, but was over-ruled by a majority vote. Hens, K___ said quite correctly, are no Chanel Number Five, but at least they stop short of smelling like an escape of sewer gas, which ducks in bulk do not ...

4. "Can you see me on a duck-farm, M___?"

"Can I?" M___'s eyes beamed adoration. "You bet I can see you there – standing in a gingham apron on the old brick path between the hollyhocks, watching little N___ romping under the apple-tree."

"Little who?"

"Little N___."

"Oh? and did you notice little O___ clinging to my skirts?"

"So she is. And P___ in his cradle on the porch."

"I think we'd better stop looking for awhile," said Q___. "Our family's growing too fast."

M___ sighed ecstatically.

"Doesn't it sound quiet and peaceful after the stormy lives we've led. The quacking of the ducks ... The droning of the bees ... Put back that spoon, dearie. You know it doesn't belong to you."

5. "I take it you believe in love at first sight?"

"I do, indeed."

"Well, that's what happened to this aching heart. It fell in love at first sight, and ever since it's been eating itself out, as I believe the expression is."

There was a silence. She had turned away and was watching a duck on the lake. It was tucking into weeds, a thing I've never been able to understand anyone wanting to do. Though I suppose, if you face it squarely, they're no worse than spinach. She stood drinking it in for a bit, and then it suddenly stood on its head and disappeared, and this seemed to break the spell.