Diets

1. "Roly-poly pudding with lots of jam in it. X specifically mentions this. Mysterious, what?"

"Extremely, sir."

"Also oysters, ice-cream, and plenty of chocolates with that goo-ey, slithery stuff in the middle. Makes you sick to think of it, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"Me, too. But that's what she says. I think she must be on some kind of diet."

2. "But he was a fellow with an enormous trouser seat."

"Ah, I see what is on your mind. Yes, yes. As a boy, quite true. I was bountifully endowed with curves in the part you have indicated. But since those days I have been using Slimmo, the sovereign remedy for obesity. The results you see before you."

3. "It has sometimes seemed to me (said Y, thoughtfully sipping his hot Scotch and lemon) that to the modern craze for dieting may be attributed all the unhappiness which is afflicting the world today. Women, of course, are chiefly responsible. They go in for these slimming systems, their sunny good natures become warped, and they work off the resultant venom on their men-folk. These, looking about them for someone they can take it out of, pick on the males of the neighbouring country, who themselves are spoiling for a fight because their own wives are on a diet, and before you know where you are, war has broken out with all its attendant horrors.

"This is what happened in the case of China and Japan. It is this that lies at the root of all the unpleasantness in the Polish Corridor. And look at India. Why is there unrest in India? Because its inhabitants eat only an occasional handful of rice. The day Mahatma Ghandi sits down to a good, juicy steak and follows it up with roly-poly pudding and a spot of Stilton, you will see the end of all this nonsense of Civil Disobedience."

[What profound good sense!]

Things That Go Bump in the Night

Things supernatural are the topic of this week's quiz. Bonus points will be given for identifying the book and chapter or short story.

1. "Do you think it is possible that he could see things not visible to the normal eye?"

I thought it dashed possible, if not probable. I don't know if you've met X. He's a festive old egg who wanders from club to club continually having a couple with other festive old eggs. When he heaves into sight, waiters brace themselves up and the wine-steward toys with his corkscrew. It was X who discovered that alcohol was a food well in advance of modern medical thought.

Who was X?

2. "Do you believe in ghosts?" asked Y abruptly.

I weighed the question thoughtfully. I was a little surprised, for nothing in our previous conversation had suggested the topic.

"Well," I replied, "I don't like them, if that is what you mean. I was once butted by one as a child."

"Ghosts, not goats."

Who was Y?

3. "Of course you wouldn't see it. It's meant for me. A nice thing this is going to be, trying to run an estate with a beastly great ghost popping in and out all the time. Concentration will become impossible."

Who was this haunted man?

Clothing

In this quiz we will concentrate on some natty dressers. Please identify the clothes wearer and book with chapter or short story.

1. "I had seen this man before only in the decent habiliments suitable to the metropolis, and I confess that even in the predicament in which I found myself I was able to shudder at the spectacle he presented in the country. It is, of course, an axiom, (.....) that the smaller the man, the louder the check suit, and X's apparel was in keeping with his lack of inches. Prismatic is the only word for those frightful tweeds, and, oddly enough, the spectacle of them had the effect of steadying my nerves. They gave me the feeling that nothing mattered."

2. "The face of this individual, as the hall porter had foreshadowed, was a rich black in colour. Its long body was draped in tights of the same sombre hue, surmounted by a leopard's skin. Towering above his head was a head-dress of ostrich feathers, and in its right hand it grasped an assegai. It was wearing tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles."

3. "There was a man in the water, a man whose upper section, the only one visible, was clad in a blue jersey. He wore a bowler hat, and from time to time , as he battled with the waves, he would put up a hand and adjust this more firmly on his head. A dressy swimmer."

Brilliant Figures of Speech

This was one of Plum's fortes, and examples abound. Please identify the characters, with book and chapter or short story title for bonus points.

Obnoxious Small Girls

To rectify the gender balance, we will look at the fairer, although not necessarily gentler, sex. There were far fewer examples for this quiz, although I hasten to add this may be due to Plum's lack of observational opportunities than any inherent angelicism. Bonus points for chapter or short story and book.

1. "...I say, J - er - did the - er - dear little souls giggle much in your day?"

"Practically without cessation, sir."

"Makes a fellow feel a bit of an ass, what? I shouldn't wonder if they usedn't to stare at you from time to time, too, eh?"

"At the school where I was employed, sir, the young ladies had a regular game which they were accustomed to play when a male visitor arrived. They would stare fixedly at him and giggle, and there was a small prize for the one made him blush first."