The Inimitable Jeeves Quotes

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.

Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests!

I suppose he must have taken about a nine or something in hats. Shows what a rotten thing it is to let your brain develop too much.

How does he look, Jeeves?" "Sir?" "What does Mr Bassington-Bassington look like?" "It is hardly my place, sir, to criticize the facial peculiarities of your friends.

What are the chances of a cobra biting Harold, Jeeves?" "Slight, I should imagine, sir. And in such an event, knowing the boy as intimately as I do, my anxiety would be entirely for the snake.

I've found, as a general rule of life, that the things you think are going to be the scaliest nearly always turn out not so bad after all.

I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing wind.

Jeeves, Mr Little is in love with that female." "So I gathered, sir. She was slapping him in the passage." I clutched my brow. "Slapping him?" "Yes, sir. Roguishly.

As a rule, you see, I'm not lugged into Family Rows. On the occasions when Aunt is calling Aunt like mastodons bellowing across premieval swamps and Uncle James's letter about Cousin Mabel's peculiar behaviour is being shot round the family circle ('Please read this carefully and send it on Jane') the clan has a tendency to ignore me. 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.

I say, you don't know how I could raise fifty quid somehow, do you?" "Why don't you work?" "Work?" said young Bingo, surprised. "What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way.

Just as you say, sir. There is a letter on the tray, sir." "By Jove, Jeeves, that was practically potry. Rhymed, did you notice?

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

Hear that, Eustace? He wishes we were staying a good long time." "I expect it will seem a good long time," said Eustace, philosophically.

Mr Little is certainly warm-hearted, sir." "Warm-hearted! I should think he has to wear asbestos vests.

When Cynthia smiles," said young Bingo, "the skies are blue; the world takes on a roseate hue; birds in the garden trill and sing, and Joy is king of everything, when Cynthia smiles." He coughed, changing gears. "When Cynthia frowns - " "What the devil are you talking about?" "I'm reading you my poem. The one I wrote to Cynthia last night. I'll go on, shall I?" "No!" "No?" "No. I haven't had my tea.

You must meet old Rowbotham, Bertie. A delightful chap. Wants to massacre the bourgeoisie, sack Park Lane and disembowel the hereditary aristocracy. Well, nothing could be fairer than that, what?

The boy is of an outspoken disposition, and had made an opprobrious remark respecting my personal appearance." "What did he say about your appearance?" "I have forgotten, sir," said Jeeves, with a touch of austerity. "But it was opprobrious.

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

There's no getting away from the fact that, if ever a man required watching, it's Steggles. Machiavelli could have taken his correspondence course.

In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove." "So I have been informed, sir." "Right ho! Then bring me my whangee, my yellowest shoes, and the old green Homburg. I'm going into the Park to do pastoral dances.

I wonder the food didn't turn to ashes in our mouths! Eggs! Muffins! Sardines! All wrung from the bleeding lips of the starving poor!" "Oh, I say! What a beastly idea!"... Jeeves came in to clear away, and found me sitting among the ruins. It was all very well for Comrade Butt to knock the food, but he had pretty well finished the ham; and if you had shoved the remainder of the jam into the bleeding lips of the starving poor it would hardly have made them sticky.

He sallied forth, having told all those bally lies with the clear, blue, pop-eyed gaze of a young child.

Never mind," I said crisply. "I have my methods." I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax.

Judge of my chagrin and all that sort of thing, therefore, when, tottering to my room and switching on the light, I observed the foul features of young Bingo all over the pillow.

Are there any books of that sort nowadays? The only ones I ever see mentioned in the papers are about married couples who find life grey, and can't stick each other at any price.

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.

We all shook hands, and the policeman, having retrieved a piece of chewing-gum from the underside of a chair, where he had parked it against a rainy day, went off into a corner and began to contemplate the infinite.

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.

Good works?" "About the village, sir. Reading to the bedridden - chatting with the sick - that sort of thing, sir. We can but trust that good results will ensue." "Yes, I suppose so," I said doubtfully. "But, by gosh, if I were a sick man I'd hate to have a looney like young Bingo coming and gibbering at my bedside.

He seemed to be doing his best to marry into a family of pronounced loonies, and how the deuce he thought he was going to support even a mentally afflicted wife on nothing a year beat me. Old Bittlesham was bound to knock off his allowance if he did anything of the sort and, with a fellow like young Bingo, if you knocked off his allowance, you might just as well hit him on the head with an axe and make a clean job of it.

[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.

I love that girl, Bertie," he went on, when he'd finished coughing. "Yes. Nice girl, of course." He eyed me with deep loathing. "Don't speak of her in that horrible casual way. She's an angel. An angel!

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." "No, no, I see that.

Yes, by damn! It's too bad!" cried the whiskered marvel. "You careless old woman! You give my hotel bad names, would you or wasn't it? Tomorrow you leave my hotel, by great Scotland!" ... I turned to Aunt Agatha, whose demeanour was now rather like that of one who, picking daisies on the railway, has just caught the down express in the small of the back.

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.

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.

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.

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

Tea, pa!" said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse who hears the bugle; and we got down to it.

At that moment the gong sounded, and the genial host came tumbling downstairs like the delivery of a ton of coals.

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

Jeeves," I said, "those spats." "Yes, sir?" "You really dislike them?" "Intensely, sir." "You don't think time might induce you to change your views?" "No, sir." "All right, then. Very well. Say no more. You may burn them." "Thank you very much, sir. I have already done so. Before breakfast this morning. A quiet grey is far more suitable, sir. Thank you, sir.

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.

I appear inadvertently to have caused much trouble, sir." "Jeeves!" I said. "Sir?" "How much money is there on the dressing-table?" "In addition to the ten-pound note which you instructed me to take, sir, there are two five-pound notes, three one-pounds, a ten-shillings, two half-crowns, a florin, four shillings, a sixpence, and a halfpenny, sir." "Collar it all," I said. "You've earned it.

Tell him my future is in his hands and that, if the wedding bells ring out, he can rely on me, even unto half my kingdom. Well, call it ten quid. Jeeves would exert himself with ten quid on the horizon, what?

She is very wonderful, Bertie. She is not one of these flippant, shallow-minded, modern girls. She is sweetly grave and beautifully earnest. She reminds me of - what is the name I want?" "Marie Lloyd?" "Saint Cecilia," said young Bingo, eyeing me with a good deal of loathing. "She reminds me of Saint Cecilia. She makes me yearn to be a better, nobler, deeper, broader man.

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.

What would Jeeves do that for?" "It struck me as rummy, too."... "I mean to say, it's nothing to Jeeves what sort of a face you have!" "No!" said Cyril. He spoke a little coldly, I fancied. I don't know why. "Well, I'll be popping. Toodle-oo!

Bertie, old man," said young Bingo earnestly, "for the last two weeks I've been comforting the sick to such an extent that, if I had a brother and you brought him to me on a sick-bed at this moment, by Jove, old man, I'd heave a brick at him.

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 are sure that I would not be well advised to make certain excisions and eliminations? You do not think it would be a good thing to cut, to prune? I might, for example, delete the rather exhaustive excursus into the family life of the early Assyrians?

Some slight friction threatening in the Balkans, sir.

The man was goggling. His entire map was suffused with a rich blush. He looked like the Soul's Awakening done in pink.

She said I would find Oswald out in the grounds, and such is a mother's love that she spoke as if that were a bit of a boost for the grounds and an inducement to go there.

The blighter's manner was so cold and unchummy that I bit the bullet and had a dash at being airy. "Oh, well, tra-la-la!" I said. "Precisely, sir," said Jeeves.

I don't know when I've experienced a more massive silence than the one that followed my reading of his cheery epistle. Young Bingo gulped once or twice and practically every known emotion came and went on his face. Jeeves coughed one soft, low, gentle cough like a sheep with a blade of grass stuck in its throat, and then stood gazing serenely at the landscape.

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 mean, when you've got used to a club where everything's nice and cheery, and where, if you want to attract a chappie's attention, you heave a piece of bread at him, it kind of damps you to come to a place where the youngest member is about eighty-seven and it isn't considered good form to talk to anyone unless you and he went through the Peninsular War together.

Bertie, it is imperative that you marry." "But, dash it all..." "Yes! You should be breeding children to..." "No, really, I say, please!" I said, blushing richly. Aunt Agatha belongs to two or three of these women's clubs, and she keeps forgetting she isn't in the smoking-room.

We run to height a bit in our family, and there's about five-foot-nine of Aunt Agatha, topped off with a beaky nose, an eagle eye, and a lot of grey hair, and the general effect is pretty formidable. Anyway, it never even occurred to me for a moment to give her the miss-in-baulk on this occasion. If she said I must go to Roville, it was all over except buying the tickets.

Now look here, old friend," I said. "I know your bally heart is broken and all that, and at some future time I shall be delighted to hear all about it, but - " "I didn't come to talk about that." "No? Good egg!" "The past," said young Bingo, "is dead. Let us say no more about it." "Right-o!" "I have been wounded to the very depths of my soul, but don't speak about it." "I won't." "Ignore it. Forget it." "Absolutely!" I hadn't seen him so dashed reasonable for days.

There's something about evening service in a country church that makes a fellow feel drowsy and peaceful. Sort of end-of-a-perfect-day feeling. Old Heppenstall was up in the pulpit, and he has a kind of regular, bleating delivery that assists thought. They had left the door open, and the air was full of a mixed scent of trees and honeysuckle and mildew and villagers' Sunday clothes. As far as the eye could reach, you could see farmers propped up in restful attitudes, breathing heavily; and the children in the congregation who had fidgeted during the earlier part of the proceedings were now lying back in a surfeited sort of coma. The last rays of the setting sun shone through the stained-glass windows, birds were twittering in the trees, the women's dresses crackled gently in the stillness. Peaceful. That's what I'm driving at. I felt peaceful. Everybody felt peaceful.

Hallo, Bertie." "Hallo, old turnip. Where have you been all this while?" "Oh, here and there! Ripping weather we're having, Bertie." "Not bad." "I see the Bank Rate is down again." "No, really?" "Disturbing news from Lower Silesia, what?" "Oh, dashed!" He pottered about the room for a bit, babbling at intervals. The boy seemed cuckoo. "Oh, I say, Bertie!" he said suddenly, dropping a vase which he had picked off the mantelpiece and was fiddling with. "I know what it was I wanted to tell you. I'm married.

I've been through a bad time, Bertie, these last weeks. The sun ceased to shine - " "That's curious. We've had gorgeous weather in London." "The birds ceased to sing." "What birds?" "What the devil does it matter what birds?" said young BIngo, with some asperity. "Any birds. The birds round about here. You don't expect me to specify them by their pet names, do you? I tell you, Bertie, it hit me hard at first, very hard." "What hit you?" I simply couldn't follow the blighter. "Charlotte's calculated callousness.

Bertie old man I say Bertie could you possibly come down here at once. Everything gone wrong hang it all. Dash it Bertie you simply must come. I am in a state of absolute despair and heart-broken. Would you mind sending another hundred of those cigarettes. Bring Jeeves when you come Bertie. You simply must come Bertie. I rely on you. Don't forget to bring Jeeves. Bingo. For a chap who's perpetually hard-up, I must say that young Bingo is the most wasteful telegraphist I ever struck. He's got no notion of condensing. The silly ass simply pours out his wounded soul at twopence a word, or whatever it is, without a thought.

Mr Wingham has the advantage of being on the premises. He and the young lady play duets after dinner, which acts as a bond. Mr Little on these occasions, I understand, prowls about in the road, chafing visibly.

Sheh walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climes and starry skies; and all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Another bit of bread and cheese," he said to the lad behind the bar.

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.

The scheme had been, if I remember, that after lunch I should go off and caddy for Honoria on a shopping tour down Regent Street; but when she got up and started collecting me and the rest of her things, Aunt Agatha stopped her.

What are you giving us?" "Cold consomme, a cutlet, and a savoury, sir. With lemon-squash, iced." "Well, I don't see how that can hurt him. Don't go getting carried away by the excitement of the thing and start bringing in coffee.

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. So that it was a bit of an anti-climax when I merely ran into young Bingo Little, looking perfectly foul in a crimson satin tie decorated with horseshoes.

Young Bingo was too busy introducing the mob to take much notice. They were a very C3 collection. Comrade Butt looked like one of those things that come out of dead trees after the rain; moth-eaten was the word I should have used to described old Rowbotham; and as for Charlotte, she seemed to take me straight into another and a dreadful world.

I am familiar with the name Bassington-Bassington, sir. There are three branches of the Bassington-Bassington family - the Shropshire Bassington-Bassingtons, the Hampshire Bassington-Bassingtons, and the Kent Bassington-Bassingtons." "England seems pretty well stocked up with Bassington-Bassingtons." "Tolerably so, sir." "No chance of a sudden shortage, I mean, what?" "Presumably not, sir." "And what sort of a specimen is this one?" "I could not say, sir, on such short acquaintance." "Will you give me a sporting two to one, Jeeves, judging from what you have seen of him, that this chappie is not a blighter or an excrescence?" "No, sir. I should not care to venture such liberal odds.

Do you realise that about two hundred of Twing's heftiest are waiting for you outside to chuck you into the pond?" "No!" "Absolutely!" For a moment the poor chap seemed crushed. But only for a moment. There has always been something of the good old English bulldog breed about Bingo. A strange, sweet smile flickered for an instant over his face. "It's all right," he said. "I can sneak out through the cellar and climb over the wall at the back. They can't intimidate me!

These are the times that try men's souls. It's never pleasant to be caught in the machinery when a favourite comes unstitched, and in the case of this particular dashed animal, one had come to look on the running of the race as a pure formality, a sort of quaint, old-world ceremony to be gone through before one sauntered up to the bookie and collected.

By the way, I may have misled you by using the word 'tea'. None of your wafer slices of bread-and-butter. We're good trencher-men, we of the Revolution. What we shall require will be something on the order of scrambled eggs, muffins, jam, ham, cake and sardines. Expect us at five sharp." "But, I say, I'm not quite sure - " "Yes, you are. Silly ass, don't you see that this is going to do you a bit of good when the Revolution breaks loose? When you see old Rowbotham sprinting up Piccadilly with a dripping knife in each hand, you'll be jolly thankful to be able to remind him that he once ate your tea and shrimps.

I may be wronging her, but I have an idea that she's the sort of girl who would want a fellow to carve out a career and what not. I know I've heard her speak favourably of Napoleon. So what with one thing and another the jolly old frenzy sort of petered out, and now we're just pals. I think she's a topper, and she thinks me next door to a looney, so everything's nice and matey.

Jeeves." "Sir?" "Are you busy just now?" "No, sir." "I mean, not doing anything in particular?" "No, sir. It is my practice at this hour to read some improving book; but, if you desire my services, this can easily be postponed, or, indeed, abandoned altogether.

Sir Roderick Glossop, Honoria’s father, is always called a nerve specialist, because it sounds better, but everybody knows that he’s a sort of janitor to the looney-bin. I mean to say, when your uncle the Duke begins to feel the strain a bit and you find him in the blue drawing room sticking straws in his hair, old Glossop is the first person you send for. ... Practically every posh family in the country has called him in at one time or another, and I suppose that, being in that position—I mean, constantly having to sit on people’s heads while their nearest and dearest phone to the asylum to send round the waggon—does tend to make a chappie take what you call a warped view of humanity.

I say, Bertie," he said, after a pause of about an hour and a quarter. "Hallo!" "Do you like the name Mabel?" "No." "No?" "No." "You don't think there's a kind of music in the word, like the wind rustling gently through the tree-tops?" "No." He seemed disappointed for a moment; then cheered up. "Of course, you wouldn't. You always were a fat-headed worm without any soul, weren't you?" "Just as you say. Who is she? Tell me all.

In love with me. Don't be absurd." "My dear old thing, you don't know young Bingo. He can fall in love with anybody." "Thank you!" "Oh, I didn't mean it that way, you know. I don't wonder at his taking to you. Why, I was in love with you myself once." "Once? Ah! And all that remains now are the cold ashes? This isn't once of your tactful evenings, Bertie." "Well, my dear sweet thing, dash it all, considering that you gave me the bird and nearly laughed yourself into a permanent state of hiccoughs when I asked you - " "Oh, I'm not reproaching you. No doubt there were faults on both sides. He's very good-looking, isn't he?" "Good-looking? Bingo? Bingo good-looking? No, I say, come now, really!" "I mean, compared with some people," said Cynthia.

Take it for all in all, a representative gathering of Twing life and thought. The Nibs were whispering in a pleased manner to each other, the Lower Middles were sitting up very straight, as if they'd been bleached, and the Tough Eggs whiled away the time by cracking nuts and exchanging low rustic wheezes.

I worship her, Bertie! I worship the very ground she treads on!" continued the patient, in a loud, penetrating voice. Fred thompson and one or two fellows had come in, and McGarry, the chappie behind the bar, was listening with his ears flapping. But there's no reticence about Bingo. He always reminds me of the hero of a musical comedy who takes the centre of the stage, gathers the boys round him in a circle, and tells them all about his love at the top of his voice.

I say Bertie old man I am in love at last. She is the most wonderful girl Bertie old man. This is the real thing at last Bertie. Come here at once and bring Jeeves. Oh I say you know that tobacco shop in Bond Street on the left side as you go up. Will you get me a hundred of their special cigarettes and send them to me here. I have run out. I know when you see her you will think she is the most wonderful girl. Mind you bring Jeeves. Don't forget the cigarettes. - Bingo.

My name's Bassington-Bassington, and the jolly old Bassington-Bassingtons - I mean the Bassington-Bassingtons aren't accustomed - " Old Blumenfeld told him in a few brief words pretty much what he thought of the Bassington-Bassingtons and what they weren't accustomed to. ... "You got to work good for my pop!" said the stout child, waggling his head reprovingly at Cyril. "I don't want any bally cheek from you!" said Cyril, gurgling a bit. "What's that?" barked old Blumenfeld. "Do you understand that this boy is my son?" "Yes, I do," said Cyril. "And you both have my sympathy!" "You're fired!" bellowed old Blumenfeld, swelling a good bit more. "Get out of my theatre!

He's quite a bit of a snob, you know, and when he hears I'm going to marry the daughter of an earl - " "I say, old man," I couldn't help saying, "aren't you looking ahead rather far?" "Oh, that's all right. It's true nothing's actually settled yet, but she practically told me the other day she was fond of me." "What!" "Well, she said that the sort of man she liked was the self-reliant, manly man with strength, good looks, character, ambition, and initiative." "Leave me, laddie," I said. "Leave me to my fried egg.

He was one of those supercilious striplings who give you the impression that you went to the wrong school and that your clothes don't fit. "This is Oswald," said Bingo. "What," I replied cordially, "could be sweeter? How are you?" "Oh, all right," said the kid. "Nice place, this." "Oh, all right," said the kid. "Having a good time fishing?" "Oh, all right," said the kid. Young Bingo led me off to commune apart. "Doesn't jolly old Oswald's incessant flow of prattle make your head ache sometimes?" I asked. Bingo sighed.

And you call yourself a pal of mine!" "Yes, I know; but there are limits." "Bertie," said Bingo reproachfully, "I saved your life once." "When?" "Didn't I? It must have been some other fellow then. Well, anyway, we were boys together and all that. You can't let me down." "Oh, all right," I said. "But, when you say you haven't nerve enough for any dashed thing in the world, you misjudge yourself.

How would this do you, Bingo?" I said at length. "A few plovers' eggs to weigh in with, a cup of soup, a touch of cold salmon, some cold curry, and a splash of gooseberry tart and cream with a bite of cheese to finish?" I don't know that I had expected the man actually to scream with delight, though I had picked the items from my knowledge of his pet dishes, but I had expected him to say something.

A ripe suggestion," I said. "Where are you meeting her? At the Ritz?" "Near the Ritz." He was geographically accurate. About fifty yards east of the Ritz there is one of those blighted tea-and-bun shops you see dotted about all over London and into this, if you'll believe me, young Bingo dived like a homing rabbit; and before I had time to say a word we were wedged in at a table, on the brink of a silent pool of coffee left there by an early luncher.

Betting!" he gargled. "Betting! You don't mean that they're betting on this holy, sacred - Oh, I say, dash it all! Haven't people any sense of decency and reverence? Is nothing safe from their beastly, sordid graspingness? I wonder," said young Bingo thoughtfully, "if there's a chance of my getting any of that seven-to-one money? Seven to one! What a price! Who's offering it, do you know? Oh, well, I suppose it wouldn't do. No, I suppose it wouldn't be quite the thing.

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.

He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food, owing to an impaired digestion. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nerve-trouble in the world." "I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case, what?" "Bertie!" "Oh, all right. Merely persiflage." "Now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick's worst suspicions.

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.

Brookfield, my correspondent, writes that last week he observed him in the moonlight at an advanced hour gazing up at his window." "Whose window? Brookfield's?" "Yes, sir. Presumably under the impression that it was the young lady's." "But what the deuce is he doing at Twing at all?" "Mr Little was compelled to resume his old position as tutor to Lord Wickhammersley's son at Twing Hall, sir. Owing to having been unsuccessful in some speculations at Hurst Park at the end of October." "Good Lord, Jeeves! Is there anything you don't know?" "I couldn't say, sir.

You know how it is as a rule, when you want to get Chappie A on Spot B at exactly the same moment when Chappie C is on Spot D. There's always a chance of a hitch. Take the case of a general, I mean to say, who's planning out a big movement. He tells one regiment to capture the hill with the windmill on it at the exact moment when another regiment is taking the bridgehead or something down in the valley; and everything gets all messed up. And then, when they're chatting the thing over in camp that night, the colonel of the first regiment says, "Oh, sorry! Did you say the hill with the windmill? I thought you said the one with the flock of sheep." And there you are!

She sometimes takes her little brother for a walk round this way," explained Bingo. "I thought we would meet her and bow, and you could see her, you know, and then we would walk on." "Of course," I said, "that's enough excitement for anyone, and undoubtedly a corking reward for tramping three miles out of one's way over ploughed fields with tight boots, but don't we do anything else? Don't we tack on to the girl and buzz along with her?" "Good Lord!" said Bingo, honestly amazed. "You don't suppose I've got nerve enough for that, do you? I just look at her from afar off and all that sort of thing. Quick! Here she comes! No, I'm wrong!" It was like that song of Harry Lauder's where he's waiting for the girl and says, "This is her-r-r. No, it's a rabbut." Young Bingo made me stand there in the teeth of a nor'-east half-gale for ten minutes, keeping me on my toes with a series of false alarms, and I was just thinking of suggesting that we should lay off and give the rest of the proceedings a miss, when round the corner there came a fox-terrier, and Bingo quivered like an aspen. Then there hove in sight a small boy, and he shook like a jelly. Finally, like a star whose entrance has been worked up by the personnel of the ensemble, a girl appeared, and his emotion was painful to witness. His face got so red that, what with his white collar and the fact that the wind had turned his nose blue, he looked more like a French flag than anything else. He sagged from the waist upwards, as if he had been filleted. He was just raising his fingers limply to his cap when he suddenly saw that the girl wasn't alone. A chappie in clerical costume was also among those present, and the sight of him didn't seem to do Bingo a bit of good. His face got redder and his nose bluer, and it wasn't till they had nearly passed that he managed to get hold of his cap. The girl bowed, the curate said, "Ah, Little. Rough weather," the dog barked, and then they toddled on and the entertainment was over.

The hotel which had had the bad luck to draw Aunt Agatha's custom was the Splendide, and by the time I got there there wasn't a member of the staff who didn't seem to be feeling it deeply. I sympathized with them. I've had experience of Aunt Agatha at hotels before. Of course, the real rough work was all over when I arrived, but I could tell by the way everyone grovelled before her that she had started by having her first room changed because it hadn't a southern exposure and her next because it had a creaking wardrobe and that she had said her say on the subject of the cooking, the waiting, the chambermaiding and everything else, with perfect freedom and candour. She had got the whole gang nicely under control by now. The manager, a whiskered cove who looked like a bandit, simply tied himself into knots whenever she looked at him.

You see I'm wearing the tie," said Bingo. "It suits you beautiful," said the girl. Personally, if anyone had told me that a tie like that suited me, I should have risen and struck them on the mazzard, regardless of their age and sex; but poor old Bingo simply got all flustered with gratification, and smirked in the most gruesome manner. "Well, what's it going to be today?" asked the girl, introducing the business touch into the conversation. Bingo studied the menu devoutly. "I'll have a cup of cocoa, cold veal and ham pie, slice of fruit cake, and a macaroon. Same for you, Bertie?" I gazed at the man, revolted. That he could have been a pal of mine all these years and think me capable of insulting the old tum with this sort of stuff cut me to the quick. "Or how about a bit of hot steak-pudding, with a sparkling limado to wash it down?" said Bingo. You know, the way love can change a fellow is really frightful to contemplate. This chappie before me, who spoke in that absolutely careless way of macaroons and limado, was the man I had seen in happier days telling the head-waiter at Claridge's exactly how he wanted the chef to prepare the sole frite au gourmet au champignons, and saying he would jolly well sling it back if it wasn't just right. Ghastly! Ghastly! A roll and butter and a small coffee seemed the only things on the list that hadn't been specially prepared by the nastier-minded members of the Borgia family for people they had a particular grudge against, so I chose them, and Mabel hopped it.