She cut an unimpressive figure

     In answer to Mike's knock, a female person opened the door. In appearance she resembled a pantomime "dame," inclining toward the restrained melancholy of Mr. Wilkie Bard rather than the joyous abandon of Mr. George Robey. Her voice she had modelled on the gramophone. Her most recent occupation seemed to have been something with a good deal of yellow soap in it. As a matter of fact - there are no secrets between our readers and ourselves - she had been washing a shirt. A useful occupation, and an honourable, but one that tends to produce a certain homeliness in the appearance.
     She wiped a pair of steaming hands on her apron, and regarded Mike with an eye which would have been markedly expressionless in a boiled fish.

(from Psmith in the City, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Wilkie Bard was a popular British vaudeville and recording artist in the beginning of the 20th century. Sir George Robey was an English singer, comedian and actor in musical comedy.


Bard


Robey