Runaway earl

     "How wonderful of you to come. And how brave! How did you manage to sneak away?"

    "What extraordinary verbs you employ, child."

    "Well, didn't Aunt Jane say she would scalp you with a blunt knife next time you were A.W.O.L.?"

    "In her playful way she did say something of the sort. Odd, that craving of hers to keep me vegetating in the country. But your honorary Aunt Jane is at the moment on her way to the West Indies. This has eased the situation a good deal. I thought it a good opportunity of broadening my mind."

    "Or playing hooky."

    "That is another way of putting it, of course."

(from Uncle Dynamite, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse. The uncle inplied in the conversation above is, of course, Frederick Altamont Cornwallis Twistleton, 5th Earl of Ickenham, the world's foremost proponent of spreading sweetness and light.)