"The curate. You know Mr. Brotherhood, the curate. That nice young man with the pimples. He has gone and got measles, and I was relying on him to judge the babies."
"What babies?"
"The bonny babies, At the fete."
A word about this fete. It was the high spot of Ashendon Oakshott's social year, when all that was bravest and fairest in the village assembled in the manor grounds and made various kinds of whoppee. Races were run. country dances danced, bonny babies judged in order of merit in the big tent and tea and buns consumed in almost incredible quantities. Picture a blend of the Derby and a garden party at Buckingham Palace, add Belshazzar's Feast, and you have the Ashenden Oakshott fete.
One can readily appreciate, therefore, Lady Bostock's concern at the disaster which had occured. A lady of the manor, with an important fete coming along and the curate in bed with measles, is in the distressing position of an impresario whose star fails him a couple of days before the big production or a general whose crack regiment gets lumbago on the eve of the battle.
(from Uncle Dynamite, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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