Cheerful family

     "No doubt you remember my mother?" said Professor Pringle mournfully, indicating Exhibit A.

    "Oh-ah!" I said, achieving a bit of a beam.

    "And my aunt," sighed the prof, as if things were getting worse and worse.

    "Well, well, well!" I said, shooting another beam in the direction of Exhibit B.

    "They were saying only this morning that they remembered you," groaned the prof, abanoning all hope.

    There was a pause. The whole strength of the company gazed at me like a family group out of one of Edgar Allan Poe's less cheery yarns, and I felt my joie de vivre dying at the roots.

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)