"Ah," said Lord Ickenham. "The vet wishes to speak to me. Yes, vet?" This seemed to puzzle the cerise bloke a bit.
"I thought you said this chap was your son."
"If I had a son," said Lord Ickenham, a little hurt, "he would be a good deal better-looking than that. No, this is the local veterinary surgeon. I may have said I looked on him as a son. Perhaps that was what confused you."
He shifted across to Pongo and twiddled his hands enquiringly. Pongo gaped at him, and it was not until one of the hands caught him smartly in the lower reps that he remembered he was deaf and started to twiddle back. Considering that he wasn't supposed to be dumb, I can't see why he should have twiddled, but no doubt there are moments when twiddling is about all a fellow feels himself equal to. For what seemed to him at least ten hours Pongo had been undergoing great mental stress, and one can't blame him for not being chatty. Anyway, be that as it may, he twiddled.
"I cannot quite understand what he says," announced Lord Ickenham at length, "because he sprained a finger this morning and that makes him stammer. But I gather he wishes to have a word with me in private. Possibly my parrot has got something the matter with it which he is reluctdant to mention even in sign language in front of a young unmarried girl. You know what parrots are. We will step outside."
(from Young Men in Spats, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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