Friday, December 20, 2019

Three at a loss

The shock of bad news affects different people in different ways. Some hardy souls are able to take it with a stiff upper lip, but on none of the three upper lips at the moment under advisement was there anything remotely resembling rigidity. Crispin, who on receipt of Barney's bombshell had quivered like a jelly in a high wind, was still quivering; Jerry uttered an odd gurgling sound which might have proceeded from the children's toy known as the dying rooster; while Chippendale once more requested some unspecified person to chase his Aunt Fanny up a gum tree. It would not be too much to say that consternation reigned.

(from The Girl In Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

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