Jeeves And Wooster Quotes

There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" "The mood will pass, sir.

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled.

We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolutely bally insult like the above.

I mean, imagine how some unfortunate Master Criminal would feel, on coming down to do a murder at the old Grange, if he found that not only was Sherlock Holmes putting in the weekend there, but Hercule Poirot, as well." ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster

This was not Aunt Dahlia, my good and kindly aunt, but my Aunt Agatha, the one who chews broken bottles and kills rats with her teeth.

Jeeves, you really are a specific dream-rabbit." "Thank you, miss. I am glad to have given satisfaction.

The cup of tea on arrival at a country house is a thing which, as a rule, I particularly enjoy. I like the crackling logs, the shaded lights, the scent of buttered toast, the general atmosphere of leisured cosiness.

Well, you certainly are the most wonderfully woolly baa-lamb that ever stepped.

She's a sort of human vampire-bat

She looked like a tomato struggling for self-expression.

What I'm worrying about is what Tom is going to say when he starts talking." "Uncle Tom?" "I wish there was something else you could call him except 'Uncle Tom,' " Aunt Dahlia said a little testily. "Every time you do it, I expect to see him turn black and start playing the banjo.

I don’t know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I’m telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it.

You agreee with me that the situation is a lulu? Certainly, a somewhat sharp crisis in your affairs would appear to have been precipitated, Sir.

She laughed - a bit louder than I could have wished in my frail state of health, but then she is always a woman who tends to bring plaster falling from the ceiling when amused.

as if Nature had intended to make a gorilla, and had changed its mind at the last moment

It was a silver cow. But when I say 'cow', don't go running away with the idea of some decent, self-respecting cudster such as you may observe loading grass into itself in the nearest meadow. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence.

We Woosters freeze like the dickens when we seek sympathy and meet with cold reserve. "Nothing further Jeeves", I said with quiet dignity.

The exquisite code of politeness of the Woosters prevented me clipping her one on the ear-hole, but I would have given a shilling to be able to do it. There seemed to me something deliberately fat-headed in the way she persisted in missing the gist.

Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don’t know?’ ‘I couldn’t say, sir.

Feminine psychology is admittedly odd, sir. The poet Pope..." "Never mind about the poet Pope, Jeeves." "No, sir." "There are times when one wants to hear all about the poet Pope and times when one doesn't." "Very true, sir.

Would you say my head was like a pumpkin, Wooster?’ ‘Not a bit, old man.’ ‘Not like a pumpkin?’ ‘No, not like a pumpkin. A touch of the dome of St Paul’s, perhaps.

I couldn't have made a better shot, if I had been one of those detectives who see a chap walking along the street and deduce that he is a retired manufacturer of poppet valves named Robinson with rheumatism in one arm, living at Clapham.

But when I say 'cow', don’t go running away with the idea of some decent, self-respecting cudster such as you may observe loading grass into itself in the nearest meadow.

I suppose the fundamental distinction between Shakespeare and myself is one of treatment. We get our effects differently. Take the familiar farcical situation of someone who suddenly discovers that something unpleasant is standing behind them. Here is how Shakespeare handles it in "The Winter's Tale," Act 3, Scene 3: ANTIGONUS: Farewell! A lullaby too rough. I never saw the heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour! Well may I get aboard! This is the chase: I am gone for ever. And then comes literature's most famous stage direction, "Exit pursued by a bear." All well and good, but here's the way I would handle it: BERTIE: Touch of indigestion, Jeeves? JEEVES: No, Sir. BERTIE: Then why is your tummy rumbling? JEEVES: Pardon me, Sir, the noise to which you allude does not emanate from my interior but from that of that animal that has just joined us. BERTIE: Animal? What animal? JEEVES: A bear, Sir. If you will turn your head, you will observe that a bear is standing in your immediate rear inspecting you in a somewhat menacing manner. BERTIE (as narrator): I pivoted the loaf. The honest fellow was perfectly correct. It was a bear. And not a small bear, either. One of the large economy size. Its eye was bleak and it gnashed a tooth or two, and I could see at a g. that it was going to be difficult for me to find a formula. "Advise me, Jeeves," I yipped. "What do I do for the best?" JEEVES: I fancy it might be judicious if you were to make an exit, Sir. BERTIE (narrator): No sooner s. than d. I streaked for the horizon, closely followed across country by the dumb chum. And that, boys and girls, is how your grandfather clipped six seconds off Roger Bannister's mile. Who can say which method is superior?" (As reproduced in Plum, Shakespeare and the Cat Chap )

Abandon the idea, Jeeves. I fear you have not studied the sex as I have. Missing her lunch means little or nothing to the female of the species. The feminine attitude toward lunch is notoriously airy and casual. Where you have made your bloomer is confusing lunch with tea. Hell, it is well known, has no fury like a woman who wants her tea and can't get it. At such times the most amiable of the sex become mere bombs which a spark may ignite." Bertie Wooster

We Woosters can bite the bullet.

The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you're someone. You hear them shouting "Heil, Spode!" and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: "Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?

Yes, sir,' said Jeeves in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend.

Mother always used to say, 'If you want to succeed in life, please the women. They are the real bosses. The men don't count.

[On writing Jeeves and Wooster stories]: You tell yourself that you can take Jeeves stories or leave them alone, that one more can't possibly hurt you, because you know you can pull up whenever you feel like it, but it is merely wish-full thinking. The craving has gripped you and there is no resisting it. You have passed the point of no return.

What ho!' I said. 'What ho!' said Motty. 'What ho! What ho!' 'What ho! What ho! What ho!' After that it seemed rather difficult to go on with the conversation.

I suppose even Dictators have their chummy moments, when they put their feet up and relax with the boys, but it was plain from the outset that if Roderick Spode had a sunnier side, he had not come with any idea of exhibiting it now. His manner was curt. One sensed the absence of the bonhomous note. ... Here he laid a hand on my shoulder, and I can't remember when I have experienced anything more unpleasant. Apart from what Jeeves would have called the symbolism of the action, he had a grip like the bite of a horse. "Did you say 'Oh yes?'" he asked. "Oh no," I assured him.

She was standing by the barometer, which, if it had had an ounce of sense in its head, would have been pointing to 'Stormy' instead of 'Set Fair

A hoarse shout from within and a small china ornament whizzing past my head informed me that my old friend was at home.

I said, 'Don't talk rot, Old Tom Travers." "I am not accustomed to talk rot," he said. "Then, for a beginner," I said, "you do it dashed well.

a chap who's supposed to stop chaps pinching things from chaps having a chap come along and pinch something from him.

she would be in much the same position as one of those monarchs or dictators who wake up one morning to find that the populace has risen against them and is saying it with bombs.

I merely called for my hat and stick in a marked manner and legged it. But the memory rankled, if you know what I mean. We Woosters do not lightly forget. At least, we do - some things - appointments, and people's birthdays, and letters to post, and all that - but not an absolute bally insult like the above. I brooded like the dickens.

Have you lost the girl you love?’ ‘That’s what I’m trying to figure out. I can’t make up my mind. It all depends what construction you place on the words “I never want to see or speak to you again in this world or the next, you miserable fathead.”’ ‘Did she say that?

What with one thing and another, I can't remember ever having been chirpier than at about this period in my career. Everything seemed to be going right. On three separate occasions horses on which I'd invested a sizeable amount won by lengths instead of sitting down to rest in the middle of the race, as horses usually do when I've got money on them. ~ Bertram "Bertie" Wooster - The Inimitable Jeeves

I will be your wife, Bertie.’ There didn’t seem much to say to this except ‘Oh, thanks.

You know, with the most charitable feelings towards him, there are moments when you can’t help thinking that young Bingo ought to be in some sort of a home.

fine figure of a young fellow as far northwards as the neck, but above that solid concrete.

What if he does think you the world’s premier louse? Don’t we all?

If I meet a bird, I wave a friendly hand at it, to let it know that I wish it well, but I don’t want to crouch behind a bush observing its habits.

Lord Chesterfield said that since he had had the full use of his reason nobody had heard him laugh. I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's 'Letters To His Son'? ...Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office I wouldn't even read the postcards.

You probably think that being a guest in your aunt's house I would hesitate to butter you all over the front lawn and dance on the fragments in hobnailed boots, but you are mistaken. It would be a genuine pleasure. By an odd coincidence I brought a pair of hobnailed boots with me!' So saying, and recognising a good exit line when he saw one, he strode out, and after an interval of tense meditation I followed him. (Spode to Wooster)

I felt most awfully braced. I felt as if the clouds had rolled away and all was as it used to be. I felt like one of those chappies in the novels who calls off the fight with his wife in the last chapter and decides to forget and forgive. I felt I wanted to do all sorts of other things to show Jeeves that I appreciated him.

This Miss Wooster that I knew married a man named Spenser. Was she any relation?" "She is my Aunt Agatha," I replied, and I spoke with a good deal of bitterness, trying to suggest by my manner that he was exactly the sort of man, in my opinion, who would know my Aunt Agatha.

He was a red-headed chap, and my experience of the red-headed is that you can always expect high blood pressure from them in times of stress. The first Queen Elizabeth had red hair, and look what she did to Mary Queen of Scots.

It can't be done, old thing. Sorry, but it's out of the question. I couldn't go through all that again." "Not for me?" "Not for a dozen more like you." "I never thought," said Bingo sorrowfully, "to hear those words from Bertie Wooster!" "Well, you've heard them now," I said. "Paste them in your hat." "Bertie, we were at school together." "It wasn't my fault." "We've been pals for fifteen years." "I know. It's going to take me the rest of my life to live it down.

Jeeves," I said. "A rummy communication has arrived. From Mr. Glossop." "Indeed, sir?" "I will read it to you. Handed in at Upper Bleaching. Message runs as follows: When you come tomorrow, bring my football boots. Also, if humanly possible, Irish water-spaniel. Urgent. Regards. Tuppy. "What do you make of that, Jeeves?" "As I interpret the document, sir, Mr. Glossop wishes you, when you come tomorrow, to bring his football boots. Also, if humanly possible, an Irish water-spaniel. He hints that the matter is urgent, and sends his regards." "Yes, that is how I read it. But why football boots?" "Perhaps Mr. Glossop wishes to play football, sir.

moment blighted Harold discovered that training meant knocking off pastry, taking exercise, and keeping away from the cigarettes, he was all against it, and it was only by unceasing vigilance that we managed to keep him in any shape at all.

Jeeves, of course, is a gentleman’s gentlemen, not a butler, but if the call comes, he can buttle with the best of them.

For the last day or so there had been a certain amount of coolness in the home over a pair of jazz spats which I had dug up while exploring in the Burlington Arcade.

I knew a chap who bumped his leg, and it turned black and had to be cut off at the knee.’ ‘You do seem to mix with the most extraordinary people.

How’s the weather, Jeeves?’ ‘Exceptionally clement, sir.

the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate.

Spink-Bottle, you ghastly goggle-eyed piece of gorgonzola

Yes, sir. There is a tide in the affairs of men which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune. Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries.

There are, of course, three ways to hide behind a sofa.

He was looking like a minor prophet about to rebuke the sins of the people

I felt like Doctor Watson hearing Sherlock Holmes talking about the one hundred and forty-seven varieties of tobacco ash and the time it takes parsley to settle in the butter dish.

I’m not much of a ladies’ man, but on this particular morning it seemed to me that what I really wanted was some charming girl to buzz up and ask me to save her from assassins or something.

NOW, touching this business of old Jeeves – my man, you know – how do we stand? Lots of people think I’m much too dependent on him. My Aunt Agatha, in fact, has even gone so far as to call him my keeper. Well, what I say is: Why not? The man’s a genius.

Those who know Bertram Wooster best are aware that he is a man of sudden, strong enthusiasms and that, when in the grip of one of these, he becomes a remorseless machine—tense, absorbed, single-minded.

Ah, well,’ I said resignedly, ‘if that’s that, that’s that, what?’ ‘So it would appear, sir.’ ‘Nothing to do but keep the chin up and the upper lip as stiff as can be managed. I think I’ll go to bed with an improving book. Have you read The Mystery of the Pink Crayfish by Rex West?

The snail was on the wing and the lark on the thorn - or, rather, the other way around - and God was in His heaven and all right with the world. And presently the eyes closed, the muscles relaxed, the breathing became soft and regular, and sleep, which does something which has slipped my mind to the something sleeve of care, poured over me in a healing wave.

It’s one of the advantages I get from being a bachelor—and, according to my nearest and dearest, practically a half-witted bachelor at that. ‘It’s no good trying to get Bertie to take the slightest interest’ is more or less the slogan, and I’m bound to say I’m all for it. A quiet life is what I like.

Bertie,’ he said, ‘I want your advice.’ ‘Carry on.’ ‘At least, not your advice, because that wouldn’t be much good to anybody. I mean, you’re a pretty consummate old ass, aren’t you? Not that I want to hurt your feelings, of course.

He looked at me like Lillian Gish coming out of a swoon. "Is this Bertie Wooster talking?" he said, pained. "Yes, it jolly well is!" "Bertie, old man," said Bingo, patting me gently here and there, "reflect! We were at school - " "Oh, all right!

You haven’t a flask on you, have you?’ ‘No.’ ‘A pity. One should always carry a flask about in case of emergencies. Saint Bernard dogs do it in the Alps. Fifty million Saint Bernard dogs can’t be wrong. I have just passed through a great emotional experience, Bertie.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again--girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being more d. than the m.

The wretched man seemed fully conscious of his position.

a chap after the horses.’ He had found the right

Wooster: Wait a second; this white mess jacket is brand new. Jeeves: I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir, or else it had been placed there by your enemies.

When I have a leisure moment, you will generally find me curled up with Spinoza's latest.

Very good," I said coldly. "In that case, tinkerty tonk." And I meant it to sting.

Mr Wooster, I am not ashamed to say that the tears came into my eyes as I listened to them. It amazes me that a man as young as you can have been able to plumb human nature so surely to its depths; to play with so unerring a hand on the quivering heart-strings of your reader; to write novels so true, so human, so moving, so vital!" "Oh, it's just a knack," I said.

I like B. Wooster the way he is. Lay off him, I say. Don’t try to change him, or you may lose the flavour. Even when we were merely affianced, I recalled, this woman had dashed the mystery thriller from my hand, instructing me to read instead a perfectly frightful thing by a bird called Tolstoy. At the thought of what horrors might ensue after the clergyman had done his stuff and she had a legal right to bring my grey hairs in sorrow to the grave, the imagination boggled. It was a subdued and apprehensive Bertram Wooster who some moments later reached for the hat and light overcoat and went off to the Savoy to shove food into the Trotters.

Furthermore, as is the case with so many of the younger literati, he dresses like a tramp cyclist, affecting turtleneck sweaters and grey flannel bags with a patch on the knee and conveying a sort of general suggestion of having been left out in the rain overnight in an ash can.

I suppose I must be one of the neurotic younger generation you read about in the papers nowadays, because it was pretty plain within half a second that I wasn't strong and I wasn't phlegmatic.

I suppose a man who has been hit over the head with a picture of a girl chirruping to a pigeon and almost immediately afterwards enmeshed in a sheet can never really retain the cool, intelligent outlook.

Too often on such occasions one feels, as I feel so strongly with regard to poor old Stilton, that the kindly thing to do would be to seize the prospective bridegroom’s trousers in one’s teeth and draw him back from danger, as faithful dogs do to their masters on the edge of precipices on dark nights.’ ‘Yes,

I heard the telephone tootling out in the hall and rose to attend it. “Bertram Wooster’s residence,” I said, having connected with the instrument. “Wooster in person at this end. Oh, hullo,” I added, for the voice that boomed over the wire was that of Mrs. Thomas Portalington Travers of Brinkley Court, Market Snodsbury, near Droitwich — or, putting it another way, my good and deserving Aunt Dahlia. “A very hearty pip-pip to you, old ancestor,” I said, well pleased, for she is a woman with whom it is always a privilege to chew the fat. “And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,” she replied cordially.

If there’s one thing I like, it’s a quiet life. I’m not one of those fellows who get all restless and depressed if things aren’t happening to them all the time. You can’t make it too placid for me. Give me regular meals, a good show with decent music every now and then, and one or two pals to totter round with, and I ask no more.

His brow was sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought and his air that of a man who, if he had said ''Hullo, girls'', would have said it like someone in a Russian drama announcing that Grandpapa had hanged himself in the barn.

It’s called “Caliban At Sunset”.’ ‘What at sunset?’ ‘Caliban.’ He cleared his throat, and began: I stood with a man Watching the sun go down. The air was full of murmurous summer scents And a brave breeze sang like a bugle From a sky that smouldered in the west, A sky of crimson, amethyst and gold and sepia And blue as blue as were the eyes of Helen When she sat Gazing from some high tower in Ilium Upon the Grecian tents darkling below. And he, This man who stood beside me, Gaped like some dull, half-witted animal And said, ‘I say, Doesn’t that sunset remind you Of a slice Of underdone roast beef?’ He

Tell me, Jeeves," I said. "Suppose you were in a shop taking By The Order of the Czar out of the lending library and a clergyman's daughter came in and without so much as a preliminary 'Hullo, there' said to you, 'Has he brought it yet?' what interpretations would you place on those words?" He pondered, this way and that dividing the swift mind, as I have heard him put it. "'Has he brought it yet,' sir?" "Just that." "I should reach the conclusion that the lady was expecting a male acquaintance to have arrived or to be arriving shortly bearing some unidentified object.

This whole business of jacking up the soul is one that varies according to what Jeeves calls the psychology of the individual, some being all for it, others not. You take me, for instance. I don’t say I’ve got much of a soul, but, such as it is, I’m perfectly satisfied with the little chap. I don’t want people fooling about with it. ‘Leave it alone,’ I say. ‘Don’t touch it. I like it the way it is.

I mean to say, millions of people, no doubt, are so constituted that they scream with joy and excitement at the spectacle of a stuffed porcupine-fish or a glass jar of seeds from Western Australia - but not Bertram. No; if you will take the word of one who would not deceive you, not Bertram. By the time we had tottered out of the Gold Coast village and were working towards the Palace of Machinery, everything pointed to my shortly executing a quiet sneak in the direction of that rather jolly Planters' Bar in the West Indian section. ... There are certain moments in life when words are not needed. I looked at Biffy, Biffy looked at me. A perfect understanding linked our two souls. "?" "!" Three minutes later we had joined the Planters. I have never been in the West Indies, but I am in a position to state that in certain of the fundamentals of life they are streets ahead of our European civilisation. The man behind the counter, as kindly a bloke as I ever wish to meet, seemed to guess our requirements the moment we hove in view. Scarcely had our elbows touched the wood before he was leaping to and fro, bringing down a new bottle with each leap. A planter, apparently, does not consider he has had a drink unless it contains at least seven ingredients, and I'm not saying, mind you, that he isn't right. The man behind the bar told us the things were called Green Swizzles; and, if ever I marry and have a son, Green Swizzle Wooster is the name that will go down on the register, in memory of the day his father's life was saved at Wembley.

I don’t think I have ever assisted at a ceremony which gave such universal pleasure to all concerned. The sheet didn’t split, which pleased Gussie. Nobody came to interrupt us, which pleased me. And when I dropped the suitcase, it hit Gussie on the head, which delighted Aunt Dahlia. As for Jeeves, one could see that the faithful fellow was tickled pink at having been able to cluster round and save the young master in his hour of peril. His motto is ‘Service.

...we often imagined, as we drove, a fictional universe in which Fitzgerald's and Wodehouse's creations might visit one another. Bertie Wooster and Jeeves might have intruded on the rarefied world of the Eggs, silly-ass Bertie stepping into sensible Nick Carraway's shoes, and Reginald Jeeves the fish-eating Spinoza-loving gentleman's gentleman and genius finding a way to give Jay Gatsby the happy-ever-after ending with Daisy Buchanan for which he so profoundly longed.

You should have seen him. Such a kind smile. He said you would be delighted to help me.’ ‘He did, eh?’ ‘He spoke most highly of you.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Oh, yes, he thinks a lot of you. I remember his very words. “Mr Wooster, miss,” he said, “is, perhaps, mentally somewhat negligible, but he has a heart of gold.” He said that as he was lowering me from the side of the boat by a rope, having first made sure that the coast was clear. I couldn’t dive, you see, because of the splash.

In these disturbed days in which we live, it has probably occurred to all thinking men that something drastic ought to be done about aunts. Speaking for myself, I have long felt that stones should be turned and avenues explored with a view to putting a stopper on the relatives in question. If someone were to come to me and say, 'Wooster, would you be interested in joining a society I am starting whose aim will be the suppression of aunts or at least will see to it that they are kept on a short chain and are not permitted to roam hither and thither at will, scattering desolation on all side?', I would reply, 'Wilbraham', if his name was Wilbraham, 'I am with you heart and soul. Put me down as a foundation member.

There you see two typical members of the class which has down-trodden the poor for centuries. Idlers! Non-producers! Look at the tall thin one with the face like a motor-mascot. Has he ever done an honest day's work in his life? No! A prowler, a trifler, and a blood-sucker! And I bet he still owes his tailor for those trousers!" He seemed to me to be verging on the personal, and I didn't think a lot of it. Old Bittlesham, on the other hand, was pleased and amused. "A great gift of expression these fellows have," he chuckled. "Very trenchant." "And the fat one!" proceeded the chappie. "Don't miss him. Do you know who that is? That's Lord Bittlesham! One of the worst. What has he ever done except eat four square meals a day? His god is his belly, and he sacrifices burnt-offerings to it. If you opened that man now you would find enough lunch to support ten working-class families for a week." "You know, that's rather well put," I said, but the old boy didn't seem to see it. He had turned a brightish magenta and was bubbling like a kettle on the boil. "Come away, Mr Wooster," he said. "I am the last man to oppose the right of free speech, but I refuse to listen to this vulgar abuse any longer." We legged it with quiet dignity, the chappie pursuing us with his foul innuendoes to the last. Dashed embarrassing.

I remember once when he and I arrived at a country house where the going threatened to be sticky, Jeeves, as we alighted, murmured in my ear the words 'Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came, sir', and at the time I could make nothing of the crack. Subsequent inquiry, however, revealed that this Roland was one of those knights of the Middle Ages who spent their time wandering to and fro, and that on fetching up one evening at a dump known as the Dark Tower he had scratched the chin a bit dubiously, not liking the look of things.

The silly ass had left the kitchen door open, and I hadn't gone two steps when his voice caught me squarely in the eardrum. 'You will find Mr Wooster', he was saying to the substitue chappie, 'an extremely pleasant and amiable young gentleman, but not intelligent. By no means intelligent. Mentally he is negligible - quite negligible'. Well, I mean to say. What! I suppose, strictly speaking, I ought to have charged in and ticked the blighter off properly in no uncertain voice. But I doubht whether it is humanly possible to tick Jeeves off.

My late Uncle Henry, you see, was by way of being the blot on the Wooster escutcheon. An extremely decent chappie personally, and one who had always endeared himself to me by tipping me with considerable lavishness when I was at school; but there's no doubt he did at times do rather rummy things, notably keeping eleven pet rabbits in his bedroom; and I suppose a purist might have considered him more or less off his onion. In fact, to be perfectly frank, he wound up his career, happy to the last and completely surrounded by rabbits, in some sort of a home.

Come to the bit about soft silk shirts for evening wear?" I asked carelessly. "Yes, sir," said Jeeves, in a low, cold voice, as if he had been bitten in the leg by a personal friend. "And if I may be pardoned for saying so - " "You don't like it?" "No, sir. I do not. Soft silk shirts with evening costume are not worn, sir." "Jeeves," I said, looking the blighter diametrically in the centre of the eyeball, "they're dashed well going to be. I may as well tell you now that I have ordered a dozen of those shirtings from Peabody and Simms, and it's no good looking like that, because I am jolly well adamant." "If I might - " "No, Jeeves," I said, raising my hand, "argument is useless. Nobody has a greater respect than I have for your judgment in socks, in ties, and - I will go farther - in spats; but when it comes to evening shirts your nerve seems to fail you. You have no vision. You are prejudiced and reactionary. Hidebound is the word that suggests itself. It may interest you to learn that when I was at Le Touquet the Prince of Wales buzzed into the Casino one night with soft silk shirt complete." "His Royal Highness, sir, may permit himself a certain licence which in your own case - " "No, Jeeves," I said, firmly, "it's no use. When we Woosters are adamant, we are - well, adamant, if you know what I mean." "Very good, sir." I could see the man was wounded, and, of course, the whole episode had been extremely jarring and unpleasant; but these things have to be gone through. Is one a serf or isn't one? That's what it all boils down to.