Lady Constance looked like a dying duck because a sudden bright light had flashed upon her. The mists had cleared, and she saw what is generally described as all. She was in possession of the facts, and they could have only one interpretation. Like a serpent, although perhaps not altogether like a serpent, for serpents do draw the line somewhere, her brother Galahad had introduced another imposter into the castle.
Blandings Castle in recent years had been particularly rich in impostors. One or two of them had had other sponsors, but as a rule it was Gally who sneaked them in, and the realization that he had done it again filled her, as she had so often been filled before, with a passionate desire to skin him with a blunt knife.
Once, when they were children, Galahed had fallen into the deep pond in the kitchen garden, and just as he was about to sink for the third time one of the gardeners had come along and pulled him out. She was brooding now on the thoughtless folly of that misguided gardener. Half the trouble in the world, she was thinking, was caused by people not letting well alone.
(from A Pelican At Blandings, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
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