Thursday, August 11, 2022

Legs by themselves?

    Gardens, gay with flowers, lay before Mr. Carlisle, and beyond them woods and the Breton quaintness of the home farm: while above him, as he raised his eyes, there was a blue sky, flecked with little clouds; a few of the local birds going about their business; an insect or two; a couple of butterflies; and a pair of legs encased in grey trousers and terminating in two shoes of generous dimensions.

    It was these last that enchained his attention. The spectacle of legs where no legs should be is always an arresting one. Mr. Carlisle, drinking them in, was frankly nonplussed. Rapidly running over in his mind the topography of the house, he discovered that their owner, if they had an owner and were not simply a stray pair of legs which had just been left about, must be sitting on the window-sill of the bedroom occupied by Senator Opal.

(from Hot Water, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

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