Quiz Questions 441 to 450
| Round
441 - 18 July 2010 … One of the soldiers on guard in front
of the Casino was narrowly missed by an anonymous orange.
For Mervo this was practically equivalent to the attack
on the Bastille. She might have been a
marquise about to hop into the tumbril at the time when
there was all that unpleasantness over in France. This week’s quiz celebrates Bastille Day (a few days late) with some reminiscences of the French Revolution. Good times, good times. Identify the characters and the story or novel from which each passage comes. 1. "'E Says," observed the constable judicially, speaking slowly and in capitals, as if addressing an untutored foreigner, "'E Says You Was Pickin' the Flowers." ... A__ was feeling weak and bewildered. Without a thought of annoying or doing harm to anybody, he seemed to have unchained the fearful passions of a French Revolution ... 2. B__ stirred indignantly in her seat. There are few things more exasperating to an innocent girl who prides herself on the almost religious carefulness of her driving than to be thrust into the position of a haughty and callous aristocrat of the old pre-Revolution French regime, the sort of person who used to bowl over the children of the proletariat in his barouche and get fists shaken at him, and she found her temper mounting. 3. "But, dash it, it's no different from marrying an heiress." "He wouldn't marry an heiress." "What!" cried C__, who would have married a dozen, had the law permitted it. "Why not?" ... ... "I'm not going to have you saying a word against D__. He's the finest man in the world, so if you want to sneer and jeer at him for refusing to live on my money, shoot ahead. Only remember that a cauliflower ear goes with it." "Quite," said C__, somewhat dazed. "Oh, definitely." A pause followed, during which a girl with a sniff and no chin came up and asked E__ to write her name and some little sentiment in her autograph album. With the air of a female member of the Committee of Public Safety signing a death warrant during the Reign of Terror, she did so. 4. … My pep was in no way augmented by the first sight I had of mine hostess. F__ was what I would call a grim woman. Not as grim as G__, perhaps, for that could hardly be expected, but certainly well up in the class of Jael, the wife of Heber, and the Madame Whoever-it-was who used to sit and knit at the foot of the guillotine during the French Revolution. 5. The H___ book had long since fallen from A__'s nerveless hand, as had the pince-nez from his nose. He reeled the latter in at the end of their cord. "I suppose I had better go down," he said in a low, toneless voice, and with faltering steps made for the door. J__, who sometimes read historical novels, though he preferred Rex Stout and Agatha Christie, was reminded of an apprehensive aristocrat of the days of the French Revolution on his way to the tumbril. Bonus point A: Cite at least three other passages in which Wodehouse characters are compared to (or compare themselves to) aristocrats waiting for (walking to, sneaking away from, etc.) the tumbril. Please give exact citations (title of short story, or title of novel and chapter number; I have found nine examples in addition to those above, but I suspect there are more). Bonus point B: In which novel does a Wodehouse character encounter a woman dressed as Marie Antoinette, and what does he do to her? Round 442 - 27 July 2010 Ode to a Nightingale Shy creatures of the night
rustled in the bushes at her side and, to top the whole
thing off, somewhere in the woods a nightingale had begun
to sing with the full-throated zest of a bird conscious
of having had a rave notice from the poet Keats ... Bertie Wooster knows his Shelley. Do you know your Keats – more specifically, your "Ode to a Nightingale" (click here for a hint)? 1. "But how," she asked, "did you know who I was?" "I recognised your voice." "Recognised my voice?" A__ stared. "After half a dozen words on the telephone?" "One would have been enough," said B__. He had now got over his initial nervousness and was feeling his affable self once more. "It is a lovely, unique voice, in a class of its own and once heard never forgotten, limpid as a woodland brook and vibrant with all the music of the spheres. When you asked that child in the apron with the gravy spots on it to send the head-waiter along, one could fancy one was listening to silver bells tinkling across the foam of perilous seas in faery lands forlorn." "Seas where?" "In faery lands forlorn. Not my own. Keats." 2. He paused to allow those wishing to do so to refresh themselves with another look at C__, and I found myself musing in some little perplexity. Long association with members of the Drones has put me pretty well in touch with the various ways in which an overdose of the blushful Hippocrene can take the individual, but I had never seen anyone react quite as D__ was doing. 3. As a rule, these story-conferences were the part of his work which E__ most enjoyed. His own share in them was not exacting, and, as he often said, you met such interesting people. To-day, however, though there were eleven of the studio's weirdest authors present, each well worth more than a cursory inspection, he found himself unable to overcome the dull listlessness which had been gripping him since he had first gone to the refrigerator that morning to put ice on his temples. As the poet Keats puts it in his "Ode to a Nightingale", his head ached and a drowsy numbness pained his sense. 4. "I am afraid, madam," he said smoothly, "that I am wholly to blame for this untimely intrusion. Lying awake in bed just now, I happened to hear the nightingale, and feeling that F__ ought not to miss this treat I woke him and suggested that he should accompany me into the garden." "Oh?" "Yes, madam. We could not see what flowers were at our feet, nor what soft incense hung upon the boughs, but we managed to catch a glimpse of the bird, did we not, sir?" "Yeah," said F__. "It was a whopper." "Quite well-developed," assented G__. "And vocally in tremendous form. We listened entranced. 'Thou wast not made for death, immortal bird,' said F__, and I agreed with him. I often say that there is no melody quite like the song of the nightingale. F__ feels the same." "Yeah," said F__. "He put forward the rather interesting theory that this was quite possibly the selfsame song that found a path through the sad heart of Ruth when, sick for home, she stood in tears amid the alien corn. I thought there might be something in it." "G__," said H__, "have you been drinking?" "Only of the Pierian fount, madam." The intellectual pressure of the conversation was becoming too much for H__. Bonus point: What does Hippocrene taste like, according to a character in an early Wodehouse novel? Round 443 - 6 August 2010 One of the poets, whose
name I cannot recall, has a passage, which I am unable at
the moment to remember, in one of his works, which for
the time being has slipped my mind, which hits off
admirably this age-old situation. We Woosters do not lightly
forget. At least, we do – some things –
appointments, and people’s birthdays, and letters to
post, and all that … “What’s his
name?” This week’s quiz is about … just a moment, it’s slipped my mind … ah, yes. Memory. 1. He was dreaming an opalescent day dream. Previously he had seemed to see her on the high board, about to make a perfect dive. He now saw her in the office of a registrar licensed to perform marriages … It was as his mind’s eye was probing even more deeply into their domestic life that there came to him the realisation that there was an obstacle, and a rather serious one, in the way of the bliss he was contemplating. He had suddenly remembered, what for the moment had slipped his mind, that he was engaged to be married to someone else. 2. “Well, if you’re going to get married … you’d better stop drinking.” He shook his head. “You don’t understand, old man. I can’t stop drinking. I have a shrewd idea that this girl got engaged to me in order to reform me, and pretty silly she would feel if I went and reformed on my own You can see how it would discourage her. Probably she would lose interest and chuck me.” … “Who is this girl you’re engaged to?” “Her name is …” He paused, and his brow wrinkled. “Her name … Now, if you had asked me that an hour ago – nay, even half an hour ago … Ah!” he said, perking up. “Here she comes in person. She’ll be able to tell us.” 3. “Who are you?” “A__’s the name at the present. It was B__ till I hooked the old title. I don’t know if you remember me. We used to be married once.” Evidently Mrs C__ possessed one of those highly-trained memories from which no fact, however trivial, escapes. She uttered a pleased screech. 4. And it was as he drove off that he became aware of something missing. Something he should have had on his person was not on his person. He mused. His cigarette case? No, he had his cigarette case. His hat? No, he had his hat. His small change? … And then he remembered. D__’s baby. He had left it chewing a bit of indiarubber in E__’s study. 5. F__ did not reply. He gave D__ a long, lingering look from the eye which was still functioning, and the arm of the law led him out. And D__ had started to totter off, when the sergeant reminded him that there was something he was forgetting. “Your baby, sir.” “Oh, ah, yes.” “Shall we send it, or do you want to take it with you?” Round 444 - 14 August 2010 Kicking Time “I’d like to
kick Peake’s spine through his hat.” “I’ve always
treated the man with unremitting kindness, and if he
won’t do a little thing like this for me, I’ll
kick his spine up through his hat.” As covered in Round 204, many Wodehouse characters have experienced kicking: blighted young Edwin, Brinkley, Augustus Robb, Adolphus Stiffham, and of course Lord Havershot, who undergoes the ultimate tragedy: “The woman I loved had kicked me in the pants.” Here are a few more kickers and kickees (or potential kickees) to identify. 1. The spectacle of his alluring trouser seat was one which a stronger man would have found it hard to resist. To A___ it had the aspect of a formal invitation. For one moment his number 11 golf shoe, as supplied to all the leading professionals, wavered in mid-air, then crashed home. B__ screamed. “How dare you kick my brother!” A__ faced her, stern and pale. “Madam,” he said, “in similar circumstances I would have kicked the Archangel Gabriel!” 2. There was a gleam of light when the brother of C__’s pawnbroker offered ten dollars, money down, for an introduction to old D__, but the deal fell through, owing to its turning out that the chap was an anarchist and intended to kick the old boy instead of shaking hands with him. At that, it took me the deuce of a time to persuade C__ not to grab the cash and let things take their course. 3. “I nearly got E__ with a dagger, but he was too quick for me … However, I had decidedly better luck with F__. I gave him the juiciest kick I have ever administered to human frame …” Mrs G__ was staring, aghast. “You kicked my son!” “As squarely in the seat of the pants, madam,” said H__ with modest pride, “as if I had been practising for weeks.” 4. “I can give you another pointer … She was speaking to me yesterday in terms of admiration of the hero of a novel by a female writer, whose custom it was to wear riding-boots and to kick the girl of his heart with them.” J__ paled. “You don’t really think she wants a man like that?” “I do.” “You don’t feel that if a fellow had a nice singing voice and was gentle and devoted –“ “I do not.” “But this kicking business … I mean, to start with, I haven’t any riding-boots …” 5. K__ said he quite understood. “Heavy day at the office, eh? Then I mustn’t keep you. Would you care to kick me before you go?” “Sir?” “It would be something to tell your grandchildren, that you once kicked a millionaire. No? Well, up to you, of course. Then I’ll just scribble you my autograph,” said K__. 6. He gazed at them, momentarily at a loss. How, he asked himself, would Bobby Jones have handled a situation like this? The answer came in a flash. He would have taken L__ by the scruff of his neck, led him to the brink of the chasm and kicked him into it. He would then have come back for M__. Round 445 - 23 August 2010 Exotic Destinations “I have never seen
any spectacular spot yet that didn’t disappoint me.
Notably the Grand Canyon. (…) I mean, I get much
more kick out of a place like Droitwich, which has no
real merits, than out of something like the Taj
Mahal.” While most Wodehouse stories tend to be set in London, the English countryside, New York, Long Island, Hollywood, or various French casino resorts, a few much more exotic locations do crop up, at least in passing. 1. (…) there came from without the sound of some heavy body tripping over a rug, and __(A)__ came in. (...two or three pages later...) __(A)___, who had fallen into a dream about __(B)__, started convulsively and kicked over the small table on which he had placed his cup. In response to his apologies __(C)__ assured him that it did not matter in the least. Anybody who had not caught her eye, as __(A)__ did, would have supposed her to be one of those broad-minded hostesses who prefer tea on their carpets. (…two or three paragraphs later following the destruction of a cake table…) The fact was that __(A)__, though an admirable character, was always a little large for any room in which he was confined. To ensure his not kicking over cake tables, you would have had to place him in the Gobi Desert. 2. “Let’s just slip off and get married quietly and send her a picture postcard from Venice or somewhere, with a cross and a ‘This is our room. Wish you were with us’ on it.” The girl shuddered. “She would be with us,” she said. “You don’t know mother. The moment she got the picture postcard, she would come over to wherever we were and put you across her knee and spank you with a hair-brush. (…) It would spoil the honeymoon.” 3. I am never at my best when the situation seems to call for a certain soupiness, and I’ve heard other(s) (…) say the same thing about themselves. I remember __(D)__ telling me that he was out in a gondola with a girl by moonlight once, and the only time he spoke was to tell her that old story about the chap who was so good at swimming that they made him a traffic cop in Venice. Fell rather flat, he assured me, and it wasn’t much later that the girl said she thought it was getting a little chilly, and how about pushing back to the hotel. 4. She insisted on a quiet wedding, and for the honeymoon trip preferred a tour through Italy. __(E)__ (…) did not think much of Italy. In Rome, the great monuments of the past left him cold. Of the Temples of Vespasian, all he thought was that it would be a devil of a place to be bunkered behind. The Colosseum aroused a faint spark of interest in him, as he speculated whether Abe Mitchell would use a full brassey to carry it. In Florence, the view over the Tuscan Hills from the Torre Rosa, Fiesole, over which his bride waxed enthusiastic, seemed to him merely a nasty bit of rough which would take a deal of getting out of. 5. It is unpleasant to be half starved. It is unpleasant to be cooped up in a country-house in winter with nothing to do. It is unpleasant to have to sit at meals and listen to the only girl you have ever really loved being bullyragged by an old lady with six chins. And all these unpleasantnesses were occurring to __(F)__ simultaneously. It is highly creditable to him that the last should completely have outweighed the others. (…) __(F)__, in his boyhood, had been thrilled once by a narrative of a man who had got stuck in the Sargasso Sea. It seemed to him now that the monotony of the Sargasso Sea had been greatly exaggerated. Round 446 - 1 September 2010 Games of Chance Take my advice when
deep in debt, (The “Roulette Song” from Act II of Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Grand Duke) And so this week we examine those who wager their little all (and in one or two cases a good deal more than their little all) on games of chance. 1. “And when __(A)__ had all that fuss with the bank it was touch and go they didn’t send him to prison. Between ourselves (…) has a bank official (…) any right to sneak fifty pounds from the till in order to put it on a hundred-to-one shot for the Grand National? Not quite playing the game (…). Not the straight bat. __(A)__, I grant you, won five thousand of the best and never looked back afterwards, but, though we applaud his judgment of form, we must surely look askance at his financial methods.” 2. He had lost the last of his borrowed capital on the roulette board owing to a mistaken supposition that Red was going to turn up, and was standing at an open window (…) when suddenly bells began to ring all over the place and a number of those present, jostling him to one side, proceeded to pour out of the window in a foaming stream. With the utmost promptitude he added himself to the torrent. A quick dash, and he was in the garden of the house next door (…) where some moments later he was joined by __(B)__, who seemed in a petulant mood. “This is the fourth or fifth time this has happened to me,” she said peevishly (…). “Why can’t these rozzers have a heart and not be for ever interfering with private enterprise? Do you know what? I had a quid on sixteen, and sixteen came up, but before I could collect the bells began to ring and it was Ho for the open spaces. Thirty-seven pounds sterling gone with the wind.” 3. “He met me in the Haymarket and took me into the Two Goslings for a drink (…) and after we’d had it he pulls a sort of dashed little top affair out of his pocket, a thing with numbers written round it. Said he’d found it in the street and wondered who thought of these ingenious little toys and insisted on our spinning it for half-crowns. ‘You take the odd numbers, I’ll take the even,’ says young __(C)__. And before I could fight my way out into the fresh air, I was ten pounds, seven and sixpence in the hole. And I discovered next morning that they make those beastly things so that if you push the stem through and spin them the wrong way up you’re bound to get an even number. And when I asked him the following afternoon to show me that top again, he said he’d lost it. That’s the sort of fellow young __(C)__ is.” 4. You conduct this pastime, apparently, with dice, though what you aim to do with them remained a mystery to __(D)__ from start to finish. However, when one of the blokes was preparing to heave the dice and another bloke offered to bet anybody ten that he wouldn’t make it, he felt the old __(D)__ sporting blood stir in his veins. After all, he reasoned, ten dollars wasn’t so much to lose, and a little flutter helped to pass the time and make the evening interesting. So he booked the bet - to discover a moment later that what the chap had really meant was ten thousand. __(D)__ freely confesses that this was a nasty moment. 5. The contents of the telegram demanded his attention. For some time they conveyed nothing to him. The thing might have been written in Hindustani. It would have been quite appropriate if it had been, for it was from the promoters of the Calcutta Sweep, and it informed him that as the holder of ticket number 108,694, he had drawn Gelatine, and in recognition of this fact a cheque for five hundred pounds would be forwarded to him in due course. 6. And, for a bonus point, identify the man who laid the foundation for his enormous fortune by promoting a phenomenally successful “How Many Pins Does The Prime Minister’s Hat Hold?” competition. Round 447 - 9 September 2010 Tennis, Anyone? “He felt no more
interest than he would have felt in watching a game of
lawn tennis.” And so, with the US Open under way, your current Quizmaster came up with the idea of a tennis theme for this week’s quiz and, after preparing (if I do say so myself) an oojah-cum-spiff quiz, was on the point of submitting it when he was assailed by a niggling doubt. Was it possible some earlier Quizmaster or Quizmistress had already used the same theme? A quick troll through the Archives provided the answer: Yes, about four years ago and, what’s more, that earlier QM used no fewer than three of your current QM’s carefully selected questions. And so a decision had to be made. Either come up with a new Quiz topic on 24 hours' notice, or keep the tennis theme and dredge up a few substitute questions. By now canny quiz contestants will have deduced the result of that decision-making process. And if you care to refresh your memories and check out some of the questions reluctantly dropped from this week’s Quiz, you’ll find them in the Archives at Quiz Number 286. 1. __(A)__ was conscious of a feeling of awed respect for his kinsman’s enterprise. He had always known that he was a quick worker, never letting the grass grow beneath his feet in his dealings with the young and the beautiful, but in not only introducing himself to but in getting to be on such familiar terms with a girl who hadn’t been around for more than about twenty-four hours he had, in __(A)__’s opinion, excelled himself. (…) “That’s right,” he said. “Great chap, __(B)__. Always reminds me of one of those fellows who bound on stage with a racquet at the beginning of a play and say, ‘Tennis, anyone?’” 2. And he was strolling along Piccadilly, thinking of this and that, when he ran into his fellow clubman __(C)__ (…) and after a conversation of great brilliance but too long to be given in detail __(C)__ asked him if he would care to have a couple of seats next week for the dramatic entertainment in which he was appearing. And __(D)__, enchanted at the prospect of getting into a theatre on the nod, jumped at the offer like a rising trout. He looked forward with bright enthusiasm to seeing __(C)__ bound on with a racquet at the beginning of act one shouting “Tennis, anyone?” as he presumed he would do. 3. “You saw my friend __(E)__. There is another tragedy. Her whole happiness has been ruined by a wretched quarrel with the man she loves (…). They were playing in the Mixed Doubles in a tennis tournament not long ago and – according to her – I don’t understand tennis very well – he insisted on hogging the game, as she calls it. I think she means that when the ball came near her and she was going to strike it, he rushed across and struck it himself, and this annoyed her very much. She complained to him, and he was very rude and said she was a rabbit and had better leave everything to him, and she broke off the engagement directly the game was finished. And now she is broken-hearted. (…A few seconds later, __(E)__, no longer broken hearted, gave the general effect of an exhilarated foghorn as she leaped into the room, singing merrily…) “Hi, __(F)__,” she cried. “What do you think I found on the breakfast-table? A grovelling letter from the boy friend, no less. He’s surrendered unconditionally. He says he must have been mad to call me a rabbit. He says he can never forgive himself, but can I forgive him. Well, I can answer that one. I’m going to forgive him the day after to-morrow. Not earlier, because we must have discipline.” 4. “You have a large house-party?” “Oh, not so very. Let me see. There’s (… a list of six names, including the county tennis champion …)” The hand on __(G)__’s heart, now definitely iced, tightened its grip. With a lover’s sanguine optimism, he had supposed that this visit of his was going to be just three days of jolly sylvan solitude with __(H)__. And now it appeared the place was unwholesomely crowded with his fellow men. And what fellow men! Big Game hunters … Tennis champions … Chaps who rode in Grand Nationals … He could see them in his mind’s eye – lean, wiry, riding-breeched, and flannel-trousered young Apollos, any one of them capable of cutting out his weight in Clark Gables. 5. Already he was looking back ruefully at the time when he had supposed that an artist’s model had a soft job. In the first five minutes muscles which he had not been aware that he possessed had started to ache like neglected teeth. (…) “Don’t wobble, confound you!” snorted Mr __(I)__. “Yes, but my dear old artist,” said __(J)__. “what you don’t seem to grasp – what you appear not to realise – is that I’m getting a crick in the back.” (…) “Be a man, you faint-hearted string-bean!” urged __(I)__. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Why, a girl who was posing for me last week stood for a solid hour on one leg, holding a tennis racket over her head and smiling brightly withal.” “The female of the species is more india-rubbery than the male,” argued __(J)__. 6. And for your Bonus Point, your task is to identify the individual who was highly thought of by the speaker despite the fact that “He can’t play golf or tennis or polo, Or sing a solo or row.” Round 448 - 17 September 2010 A Far, Far Better Thing The Hon. Galahad Threepwood (preparing for a conference with Lady Constance): “Tell me, Beach, who was the chap who did the far, far better thing?” Beach: “Sidney Carton going to the guillotine, sir.” The Hon. Galahad Threepwood: “Oh! Well, there's always someone with more to lose, I suppose.” The above slab of dialogue was NOT by Wodehouse, but an invention of the script-writers for the 1995 film of Heavy Weather starring Society President Richard Briers as Gally. But it COULD have been by Wodehouse, as Sidney Carton’s famous farewell was a frequently used Wodehousean quote. I have a few examples for you to identify this week. 1. “You can’t go slipping pretty girls to whom you’ve never been introduced quids. At least, you can, but it may quite easily give rise to misunderstandings. However, I did not have to muse long, for there was a sudden crash outside in the street and the girl legged it to see what was happening, leaving her bag on the counter. To open it and slip in a Treasury note was with me the work of a moment, and I was just stepping back, feeling that this was a far, far better thing than I had ever done, when a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and there was this eight-feet-six bird. All unknown to me he had lined up behind me in the queue, and I could see at a glance that he was one of those public-minded good citizens who cause so much trouble.” 2. “It is a far, far better thing that you do than you have ever done, sir.” “Thank you, __(A)__.” As I have said before, there is nobody who puts these things more neatly than he does. 3. He had placed the cheque on the desk before making the discovery of its lack of stationery. He now picked it up and stood looking at it lovingly. He was well pleased with himself. It was a far, far better thing that he had done than he had ever done, felt __(B)__. He wondered how many men there were who would have snatched victory out of defeat like that. He reached for his unpleasant moustache and gave it a complacent tug. 4. “Did you say No?” “Yus, no.” (…) “I had not expected this, __(C)__,” said __(D)__ reproachfully. “You knew I was saved, didn’t you?” “Yes, but can’t you understand that this is a far, far better thing that we are asking you to do than you have ever done? Consider the righteousness of our cause.” “Busting a pete is busting a pete, and you can’t get away from it.” 5. “You are at a serious point in your career,” he said. “You will have every opportunity of rising.” “Yes. At seven in the morning, I suppose?” “A spirit of levity –” began Mr __(E)__. “I laugh that I may not weep,” explained __(F)__. “Try to think what this means to a bright young man who loathes work. Be kind to me. Instruct your floor-walkers to speak gently to me at first. It may be a far, far better thing that I do than I have ever done, but don’t ask me to enjoy it! It’s all right for you. You’re the boss. Any time you want to call it a day and go off and watch a ball game, all you have to do is leave word that you have an urgent date to see Mr Rockefeller. Whereas I shall have to submerge myself in paper, and only come up for air when the danger of suffocation becomes too great.” 6. And for your Bonus Point, your task is to identify at least one Wodehouse character who has been compared by another Wodehouse character to Ronald Colman, the actor who spoke the “far, far better thing” line on the silver screen. I can think of two examples but there may be more. And, if it helps, you shouldn’t necessarily be looking for examples that were first published after Mr Colman’s star turn in The Tale of Two Cities. Round 449 - 27 September 2010 Hair the Colour of Ripe Wheat Wodehouse describes a number of young women as having hair the colour of ripe wheat: 1. Like the heroine of A_____ and, indeed, the heroines of all the thrillers I have ever come across, she had hair the colour of ripe corn/wheat and eyes of cornflower blue. Add a tiptilted nose and a figure as full of curves as a scenic railway, and it will not strike you as strange that B____, sheathing the sword, should have stood gaping at her dumbly, his aspect that of a man who has been unexpectedly struck by a thunderbolt. 2. ‘I write about stalwart men, strong but oh so gentle, and girls with wide grey eyes and hair the colour of ripe wheat, who are always having misunderstandings and going to Africa’. 3. But C___ was in no mood for Faceless Fiends and Things In The Night. A glance at the first of the two volumes had told him that there was a gorilla in it which went climbing up water-pipes, snatching girls with grey eyes and hair the colour of ripe wheat out of their beds in the small hours, but he was a man who could take gorillas or leave them alone. 4. So far, so good, you would have said, because D___ had laughing blue eyes and hair the colour of ripe wheat and could when amused utter a delicious rippling laugh, but there was a snag. 5. He wrote stories about mysterious Chinamen and girls with hair the colour of ripe wheat and the corpses of baronets in panelled libraries, and he found the cloistral peace of E_____ assisted the composition of these. Bonus. No hair here, but who dreamt of ripe wheat shining in the summer sun? Round 450 - 6 October 2010 Butter-coloured hair Whereas some women have hair the colour of ripe wheat, a number of men have butter-coloured hair – often growing on a skull of solid ivory. 1. I wanted to feel at the top of my form – which I wasn’t at the moment, owing to having been kept awake a good deal during the night with a touch of toothache. As I approached the table, I noticed that my idea of going and doing a bit of stoking up, though good, was not original. It had occurred also to a tall, slender bloke with butter-coloured hair. He was standing there in a rooted sort of way, as if he meant to take a lot of shifting, and he seemed to be putting a good deal of custom in the way of the bar-tenders. And there was something about him, something in his technique as he raised and lowered his glass, which somehow struck me as oddly familiar. 2. She was thinking, as she often did when in meditative mood, how much she loved A___. It had come on suddenly one afternoon when they were sharing a beef stew B___ at the canteen, and had grown steadily through the months till now the urge to stroke his butter-coloured hair had become almost irresistible. And what was causing her to frown was the thought of how foolish it had been of her to get into this condition with one whose heart was so plainly bestowed elsewhere. 3. In spite of the invigorating scent of coffee which greeted him as he opened the door, it was with drawn face and dull eye that the willowy young man with the butter-coloured hair and rather prominent Adam’s apple entered the breakfast room of C____. 4. “I begin to remember,” said D____ meditatively. “A pill with butter-coloured hair tried to jump my claim. Honeyed words proving fruitless, I soaked him on the jaw. It may be that I was not wholly myself. I seem to remember an animated session at the E____ earlier in the evening, which may have impaired my self-control. Proceed!” 5. Controlling himself with a strong effort, he turned the conversation to the subject of early mangold-wurzels; and it was while he was speaking of these with eloquence and even fire that a young man with butter-coloured hair came hurrying down the stairs. ‘Buck up, F___,’ said G___ impatiently. ‘What’s the idea of keeping us all waiting like this?’ ‘Oh, sorry,’ said the young man. ‘So you ought to be. Well, now you’re here I’d like to introduce you to Mr H___. He’s come to paint Father’s portrait. Mr H___ …… Mr F___ , my fiancé.’ Bonus. What could a cat-lover do with butter? |