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0faa6bf
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He wore the unmistakable look of a man about to be present at a row between women, and only a wet cat in a strange back yard bears itself with less jauntiness than a man faced by such a prospect.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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2e2b9b8
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must explain Henry early, to avoid disappointment. If I simply said he was a detective, and let it go at that, I should be obtaining the reader's interest under false pretences. He was really only a sort of detective, a species of sleuth. At Stafford's International Investigation Bureau, in the Strand,
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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cb72694
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Much has been written on the subject of bed-books. The general consensus of opinion is that a gentle, slow-moving story makes the best opiate
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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c3f753c
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Vladimir specialized in grey studies of hopeless misery, where nothing happened till page 380, when the muzhik decided to commit suicide.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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6b820c4
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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!"
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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6aae712
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Yes; Jimmy Mundy!' she said. 'I am surprised at a man of your stamp having heard of him. There is no music, there are no drunken, dancing men, no shameless, flaunting women at his meetings; so for you they would have no attraction. But for others, less dead in sin, he has his message. He has come to save New York from itself; to force it - in his picturesque phrase - to hit the trail.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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7945d73
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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. "W..
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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ae9d893
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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.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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e753f80
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Tea, pa!" said Charlotte, starting at the word like the old war-horse who hears the bugle; and we got down to it."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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5e9eea2
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Jeeves," I said, "listen attentively. I don't want to give the impression that I consider myself one of those deadly coves who exercise an irresistible fascination over one and all and can't meet a girl without wrecking her peace of mind in the first half-minute. As a matter of fact, it's rather the other way with me, for girls on entering my presence are mostly inclined to give me the raised eyebrow and the twitching upper lip."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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6487212
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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.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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324d5cf
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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.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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5b732bc
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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."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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c062135
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At eight o'clock he fell asleep in a chair; and, having undressed him by unbuttoning every button in sight and, where there were no buttons, pulling till something gave, we carried him up to bed. Freddie stood looking at the pile of clothes on the floor with a sort of careworn wrinkle between his eyes, and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple - a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clo..
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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b1a5595
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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, ambitio..
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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90f53c0
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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?
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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abb6252
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Tell me, Jeeves," I said. "Suppose you were in a shop taking 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 w..
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library
jeeves-and-wooster
jeeves
questions
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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3e72c46
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It's a mystery to me how kidnappers ever get caught.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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b461d03
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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,
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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0f819ca
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If you come to think of it, what a queer thing Life is! So unlike anything else, don't you know, if you see what I mean. At any moment you may be strolling peacefully along, and all the time Life's waiting around the corner to fetch you one.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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d600c4d
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Scotties are smelly, even the best of them. You will recall how my Aunt Agatha's McIntosh niffed to heaven while enjoying my hospitality. I frequently mentioned it to you.' 'Yes, sir.' 'And this one is even riper. He should obviously have been bedded out in the stables.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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9dda207
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there occurred to me the simple epitaph which, when I am no more, I intend to have inscribed on my tombstone. It was this: "He was a man who acted from the best motives. There is one born every minute."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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d1149fc
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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.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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9219f7b
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It would seem to be an inexorable law of Nature that no man shall shine at both ends. If he has a high forehead and a thirst for wisdom, his fox-trotting (if any) shall be as the staggerings of the drunken; while, if he is a good dancer, he is nearly always petrified from the ears upward.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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c062475
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He was an unpleasant youth, snub-nosed and spotty. Still, he could balance himself with one hand on an inverted ginger-ale bottle while revolving a barrel on the soles of his feet. There is good in all of us.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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c33d22e
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There, my boy," he said. "It's awfully kind of you, Mr. Windlebird." "My dear boy, don't mention it. If you're satisfied, I'm sure I am." Mr. Windlebird always spoke the truth when he could. He spoke it now."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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a0952d9
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Water!' cried Marie. 'Vinegar!' recommended the bell-boy. 'Eu-de-Cologne!' said Bill. 'Pepper!' said Lord Tidmouth. Mary had another suggestion. 'Give her air!' So had the bell-boy. 'Slap her hands!' Lord Tidmouth went further. 'Sit on her head!' he advised.
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humor
remedy
cure
doctor
treatment
help
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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2708ddc
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Tricky devils, these novelists. The ink gets into their heads.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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b8e1dce
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The reactions of a country-house party to an after-dinner dog-fight in the drawing-room always vary considerably according to the individual natures of its members. Lady
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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5f047f8
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One of the first lessons life teaches us is that on these occasions of back-chat between the delicately-natured, a man should retire into the offing, curl up in a ball, and imitate the prudent tactics of the opossum, which, when danger is in the air, pretends to be dead, frequently going to the length of hanging out crepe and instructing its friends to gather round and say what a pity it all is.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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7a470d5
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I knew a man once who stammered," said Jimmy. "He used to chew dog biscuit while he was speaking. It cured him. Besides being nutritious."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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21392cc
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No fair-minded girl objects to a certain tinge of jealousy. Kept within proper bounds, it is a compliment; it makes for piquancy; it is the gin in the ginger-beer of devotion. But it should be a condiment, not a fluid.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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15b3301
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Why has the car stopped?" "Ah!" I said with manly frankness that became me well. "There you have me." You see, I'm one of those birds who drive a lot but don't know the first thing about the works. The policy I pursue is to get aboard, prod the self-starter, and leave the rest to Nature. If anything goes wrong, I scream for an A.A. scout. It's a system that answers admirably as a rule, but on the present occasion it blew a fuse owing to the..
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driving
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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91e10ca
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Few things are so pleasant as the anticipation of them...
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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f83e20f
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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 s..
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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f02c266
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Henry lived in a boarding-house in Guildford Street.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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f5350f4
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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..
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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5904b6d
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Aunt Agatha is my tough aunt, the one who eats broken bottles and conducts human sacrifices by the light of the full moon.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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2fddb9c
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Presently, the cow's audience-appeal began to wane. It was a fine cow, as cows go, but, like so many cows, it lacked sustained dramatic interest.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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5412db9
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Unlike the male codfish, which, suddenly finding itself the parent of three million five hundred thousand little codfish, cheerfully resolves to love them all, the British aristocracy is apt to look with a somewhat jaundiced eye on its younger sons. And Freddie Threepwood was one of those younger sons who rather invite the jaundiced eye.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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cd3d8e6
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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.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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83fb461
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she was usually keenly susceptible to weather conditions and reveled in sunshine like a kitten.
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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18b2041
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What on earth are you doing in Paris?" I asked. "Bertie, old man," said Biffy solemnly, "I came here to try and forget." "Well, you've certainly succeeded."
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P.G. Wodehouse |
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ecfeaf8
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He was, for a young man, extraordinarily obese. Already a second edition of his chin had been published,
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P.G. Wodehouse |