Friday, March 14, 2025

Alaric, the Duke

 Many people are fond of Dukes and place no obstacle in the way if the latter wish to fraternize with them, but few of those acquainted with Alaric, Duke of Dunstable, sought his society, Lord Emsworth least of all. He was an opinionated, arbitrary, autocratic man with an unpleasantly loud voice, bulging eyes and a walrus moustache which he was always blowing at and causing to leap like a rocketting pheasant, and he had never failed to affect Lord Emsworth unfavourably. Galahad, with his gift for the telling phrase, generally referred to the Duke as "that stinker," and there was no question in Lord Emsworth's mind that he had hit on the right label. 

(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

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