Violent awakening

 Wilbur's room was the one in which, according to legend, an Emsworth of the fifteenth century had dismembered his wife with a battle axe, as husbands in those days were so apt to do when the strain of married life became too much for them. The unfortunate woman must have experienced a good deal of apprehension when she heard him at the door, but not much more than did Wilbur when Vanessa's knock sounded in the silent night. Not even Lord Emsworth at the top of his table-upsetting form could have produced a deeper impression. After lying awake for several hours he had at last fallen into a doze, and the knock had coincided with the point in his nightmare when a bomb had exploded under his feet.

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concerning imposters

     "You don't think I'm going to squeal to Connie?"

    "Aren't you?"

    "Of course I'm not."

    "But I'm an imposter."

    "And why shouldn't you be? Practically everyone else who comes here is. Man and boy I have seen more imposters at Blandings Castle than you could shake a stick at in a month of Sundays. It would have surprised me greatly if you hadn't been an imposter. You've gone to endless trouble to get here. Do you think I'm going to dash the cup from your lips? Secrecy and silence, my wench, secrecy and silence."

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The prudent course

     "Her ladyship would like a word with you, Mr. Galahad."

    "Then what a pity," said Gally, "that she isn't going to get it."

    "Sir?"

    "You hunted high and low, you turned stones and explored avenues, but you couldn't find me. You think I must have gone to Market Blandings to buy tobacco. That is your story, Beach, and be careful to tell it without any of the hesitations and stammerings which are so apt to arouse suspicion in the auditor. Above all, remember not to stand on one leg. What you will be aiming at in her ladyship is that willing suspension of disbelief dramatic critics are always talking about. Tell your tale so that it can be swallowed. In this way much unpleasantness will be avoided," said Gally.

    He was an intrepid man and was not afraid of his sister Constance. He merely thought it wise not to confer with her until the hot blood had had time to cool. He had pursued the same policy in the past with Honest Jerry Judson and Tim Simms the Safe Man.

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Adds new meaning to the term "cold turkey"

 The supper had been a festive one, to celebrate the victory of a horse on whom as the result of a tip from the stable we had all had our bit, and I suppose they were both somewhat flushed with wine, for this argument started. Dunstable maintained that those claims were perfectly justified, and your father said the church of Abyssinia was talking through its hat, and things got more and more heated, and finally Dunstable took up a bowl of fruit salad and was about to strike your father with it, when your father grabbed this turkey, which was on a side table with the other cold viands, and with one blow laid him out as flat as a crepe suzette.

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just leave it alone!

     Lady Constance looked like a dying duck because a sudden bright light had flashed upon her. The mists had cleared, and she saw what is generally described as all. She was in possession of the facts, and they could have only one interpretation. Like a serpent, although perhaps not altogether like a serpent, for serpents do draw the line somewhere, her brother Galahad had introduced another imposter into the castle.

    Blandings Castle in recent years had been particularly rich in impostors. One or two of them had had other sponsors, but as a rule it was Gally who sneaked them in, and the realization that he had done it again filled her, as she had so often been filled before, with a passionate desire to skin him with a blunt knife.

    Once, when they were children, Galahed had fallen into the deep pond in the kitchen garden, and just as he was about to sink for the third time one of the gardeners had come along and pulled him out. She was brooding now on the thoughtless folly of that misguided gardener. Half the trouble in the world, she was thinking, was caused by people not letting well alone.

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The formal designation

     "He ought to be certified."

    Gally stroked his chin thoughtfully. He removed his eyeglass, and gave it a polish.

    "I don't think I can go as far as that," he said, "but he certainly ought to see a psychiatrist."

    "A what?"

    "One of those fellows who ask you questions about your childhood and gradually dig up the reason why you go about shouting 'Fire' in crowded theatres. They find it's because somebody took away your allday sucker when you were six."

    "I know the chaps you mean. They dump you on a couch and charge you some unholy fee per half hour. Only I thought they were called head-shrinkers."

    "That, I believe, is the medical term."

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The look of the hunted

 What with the excellence of its beer and the charm of the shady garden running down to the river in which its patrons drink it, haggard faces are rarely seen at the Emsworth Arms, and the haggardness of John's was all the more noticeable. In these idyllic surroundings it could not but attract attention, and Gally was reminded of his old friend Fruity Biffen on the occasion when he had gone into the ring at Hurst Park wearing a long Assyrian beard in order to avoid recognition by the half dozen bookmakers there to whom he owed money, and the beard, insufficiently smeared with fish glue, had come off. The same wan, drawn look.

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)