Stiff Upper Lip Jeeves Quotes

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

But a thing I’ve often noticed is that when I’ve got something off my mind, it pretty nearly always happens that Fate sidles up and shoves on something else,

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?

six of the juiciest from a cane of the type that biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder, as the fellow said.

She was heading for the piano, and something told me that it was her intention to sing old folk songs, a pastime to which, as I have indicated, she devoted not a little of her leisure. She was particularly given to indulgence in this nuisance when her soul had been undergoing an upheaval and required soothing, as of course it probably did at this juncture. My fears were realized. She sang two in rapid succession, and the thought that this sort of thing would be a permanent feature of our married life chilled me to the core.

I gave the man one of my looks. My face was cold and hard, like a School Treat egg.

I found myself gazing into the eyes of the dog Bartholomew, which were fixed on me with the sinister intentness which is characteristic of this breed of animal. Aberdeen terriers, possibly owing to their heavy eyebrows, always seem to look at you as if they were in the pulpit of the church of some particularly strict Scottish sect and you were a parishioner of dubious reputation sitting in the front row of the stalls.

We had reached the upstairs corridor, and Sir Watkyn Bassett was emerging from his room, humming a light air. It died on his lips as he saw me, and he stood staring at me aghast. He reminded me of one of those fellows who spend the night in haunted houses and are found next morning dead to the last drop with a look of awful horror on their faces. ‘Oh, Daddy,’ said Madeline. ‘I forgot to tell you. I asked Bertie to come here for a few days.’ Pop Bassett swallowed painfully. ‘When you say a few days - ?’ ‘At least a week, I hope.’ ‘Good God!’ ‘If not longer.’ ‘Great heavens!’ ‘There is tea in the drawing-room, Daddy.’ ‘I need something stronger than tea,’ said Pop Bassett in a low, husky voice, and he tottered off, a broken man.

You remember the day I lunched at the Ritz?’ ‘Yes, sir. You were wearing an Alpine hat.’ ‘There is no need to dwell on the Alpine hat, Jeeves.’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘If you really want to know, several fellows at the Drones asked me where I had got it.’ ‘No doubt with a view to avoiding your hatter, sir.

You wouldn’t think it to look at him, because he’s small and shrimplike and never puts on weight, but Gussie loves food. Watching him tucking into his rations at the Drones, a tapeworm would raise its hat respectfully, knowing that it was in the presence of a master.

This imperative demand for sustenance had probably been coming on during my Erle Stanley Gardnering, but I had been so intent on trying to keep tabs on the murder gun and the substitute gun and the gun which Perry Mason had buried in the shrubbery that I hadn’t noticed it. Only now had the pangs of hunger really started to throw their weight about, and more and more clearly as they did so there rose before my eyes the vision of that steak and kidney pie which was lurking in the kitchen, and it was as though I could hear a soft voice calling to me ‘Come and get it.

There was a cab standing outside, laden with luggage. From its window Gussie Fink-Nottle’s head was poking out, and I remember thinking once again how mistaken Emerald Stoker had been about his appearance. Seeing him steadily, if not whole, I could detect in his aspect no trace of the lamb, but he was looking so like a halibut that if he hadn’t been wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, a thing halibuts seldom do, I might have supposed myself to be gazing on something a.w.o.l. from a fishmonger’s slab.

These patrons of livings with vicarages to bestow always hold rather rigid views as regards the qualifications they demand from the curates they are thinking of promoting to fields of higher activity, and left hooks, however adroit, are not among them. If Pop Bassett had been a fight promoter on the look-out for talent and Stinker a promising novice anxious to be put on his next programme for a six-round preliminary bout, he would no doubt have gazed on him with a kindly eye. As it was, the eye he was now directing at him was as cold and bleak as if an old crony had been standing before him in the dock, charged with having moved pigs without a permit or failed to abate a smoky chimney. I could see trouble looming, and I wouldn't have risked a bet on the happy e. even at the most liberal odds.

You can't go climbing out of windows under the eyes of an Aberdeen terrier so prone as Bartholomew was always to think the worst. In due season, no doubt, he would learn that what he had taken for a burglar escaping with the swag had been in reality a harmless guest of the house and would be all apologies, but by that time my lower slopes would be as full of holes as a Swiss cheese.

My disapproval extended to the personnel of the various native tribes he had encountered in the course of his explorations. On his own showing, he had for years been horning in uninvited on the aborigines of Brazil, the Congo and elsewhere, and not one of them apparently had had the enterprise to get after him with a spear or to say it with poisoned darts from the family blowpipe. And these were fellows who called themselves savages. Savages, forsooth! The savages in the books I used to read in my childhood would have had him in the Obituary column before he could say 'What ho', but with the ones you get nowadays it's all slackness and laissez-faire. Can't be bothered. Leave it to somebody else. Let George do it. One sometimes wonders what the world's coming to.

Name it, Jeeves. Ask of me what you will, even unto half my kingdom.' 'If you could see your way to abandoning your Alpine hat, sir.' I ought to have seen it coming. That cough should have told me. But I hadn't, and the shock was severe. For an instant I don't mind admitting that I reeled. 'You would go as far as that?' I said, chewing the lower lip. 'It was merely a suggestion, sir.' I took the hat off and gazed at it. The morning sunlight played on it, and it had never looked so blue, its feather so pink. 'I suppose you know you're breaking my heart?' 'I am sorry, sir.' I sighed. But, as I have said, the Woosters can take it. 'Very well, Jeeves. So be it.' I gave him the hat. It made me feel like a father reluctantly throwing his child from the sledge to divert the attention of the pursuing wolf pack, as I believe happens all the time in Russia in the winter months, but what would you?

It was a superb spectacle while it lasted, and I was able to understand what people meant when they spoke of the Church Militant. A good deal to my regret it did not last long. Spode was full of the will to win, but Stinker had the science. It was not for nothing that he had added a Boxing Blue to his Football Blue when at the old Alma Mater. There was a brief mix-up, and the next thing one observed was Spode on the ground, looking like a corpse which had been in the water several days. His left eye was swelling visibly, and a referee could have counted a hundred over him without eliciting a response.

Rugby football is more or less a sealed book to me, I never having gone in for it, but even I could see that he was good. The lissomness with which he moved hither and thither was most impressive, as was his homicidal ardour when doing what I believe is called tackling. Like the Canadian Mounted Police he always got his man, and when he did so the air was vibrant with the excited cries of morticians in the audience making bids for the body.

She spoke lightly, but I found myself eyeing her with a certain respect. Myself, I’ve never found a host and hostess who could stick my presence for more than about a week. Indeed, long before that as a general rule the conversation at the dinner table is apt to turn on the subject of how good the train service to London is, those present obviously hoping wistfully that Bertram will avail himself of it. Not to mention the time-tables left in your room with a large cross against the 2.35 and the legend ‘Excellent train. Highly recommended.

Major Plank?' he said. Plank, too, was goggling. 'Who on earth are you?' 'Chief Inspector Witherspoon, sir, of Scotland Yard. Has this man been attempting to obtain money from you?' 'Just been doing that very thing.' 'As I suspected. We have had our eye on him for a long time, but till now have never been able to apprehend him in the act.' 'Notorious crook, is he?' 'Precisely, sir. He is a confidence man of considerable eminence in the underworld, who makes a practice of calling at houses and extracting money from their owners with some plausible story.' 'He does more than that. He pinches things from people and tries to sell them. Look at that statuette he's holding. It's a thing I sold to Sir Watkyn Bassett, who lives at Totleigh-in-the-Wold, and he had the cool cheek to come here and try to sell it to me for five pounds.' 'Indeed, sir? With your permission I will impound the object.' 'You'll need it as evidence?' 'Exactly, sir. I shall now take him to Totleigh Towers and confront him with Sir Watkyn.' 'Yes, do. That'll teach him. Nasty hangdog look the fellow's got. I suspected from the first he was wanted by the police. Had him under observation for a long time, have you?' 'For a very long time, sir. He is known to us at the Yard as Alpine Joe, because he always wears an Alpine hat.' 'He's got it with him now.' 'He never moves without it.' 'You'd think he'd have the sense to adopt some rude disguise.' 'You would indeed, sir, but the mental processes of a man like that are hard to follow.' 'Then there's no need for me to phone the local police?' 'None, sir. I will take him into custody.' 'You wouldn't like me to hit him over the head first with a Zulu knobkerrie?' 'Unnecessary, sir.' 'It might be safer.' 'No, sir, I am sure he will come quietly.' 'Well, have it your own way. But don't let him give you the slip.' 'I will be very careful, sir.' 'And shove him into a dungeon with dripping walls and see to it that he is well gnawed by rats.' 'Very good, sir.

But a thing I've often noticed is that when I've got something off my mind, it pretty nearly always happens that Fate sidles up and shoves on something else, as if curious to see how much the traffic will bear. It went into its act on the present occasion. Feeling that I needed something else to worry about, it spat on its hands and got down to it, allowing Madeline Bassett to corner me as I was passing through the hall.

He turned, and as I approached him I noted that he seemed even more braced than when last seen. The eyes behind the horn-rimmed spectacles gleamed with a brighter light, and a smile wreathed his lips. He looked like a fish that's just learned that its rich uncle in Australia has pegged out and left it a packet.

My father was in the Diplomatic service, and was constantly transferred from one post to another. He was never parted from the clock. It accompanied him in perfect safety from Rome to Vienna, from Vienna to Paris, from Paris to Washington, from Washington to Lisbon. One would have said it was indestructible. But it had still to pass the supreme test of encountering Mr. Wooster, and that was too much for it. It did not occur to Mr. Wooster . . . one cannot think of everything . . . that light may be obtained by pressing a light switch, so he—

found myself gazing into the eyes of the dog Bartholomew, which were fixed on me with the sinister intentness which is characteristic of this breed of animal. Aberdeen terriers, possibly owing to their heavy eyebrows, always seem to look at you as if they were in the pulpit of the church of some particularly strict Scottish sect and you were a parishioner of dubious reputation sitting in the front row of the stalls.

All this time Bartholomew had been trying to join us, making a series of energetic springs. Fortunately Providence in its infinite wisdom had given Scotties short legs, and though full of the will to win he could accomplish nothing constructive. However much an Aberdeen terrier may bear 'mid snow and ice a banner with the strange device Excelsior, he nearly always has to be content with dirty looks and the sharp, passionate bark. Some minutes later my fellow-rooster came out of the silence. No doubt the haughtiness of my manner had intimidated him, for there was a mildness in his voice which had not been there before. 'Mr. Wooster.' I turned coldly. 'Were you addressing me, Bassett?' 'There must be something we can do.' 'You might fine the animal five pounds.

Show me a delicately nurtured female, and I will show you a ruthless Napoleon of Crime prepared without turning a hair to put the screws on some unfortunate male whose services she happens to be in need of.

That's me,' he replied. 'My last year at school. I skippered the side that season. That's old Scrubby Willoughby sitting next to me. Fast wing threequarter, but never would learn to give the reverse pass.' 'He wouldn't?' I said, shocked. I hadn't the remotest what he was talking about, but he had said enough to show me that this Willoughby must have been a pretty dubious character, and when he went on to tell me that poor old Scrubby had died of cirrhosis of the liver in the Federal Malay States, I wasn't really surprised. I imagine these fellows who won't learn to give the reverse pass generally come to a fairly sticky end.