It was not too much to say that Wilfred Mulliner was nonplussed. The brain which had electrified the world of Science by discovering that if you mixed a stifish oxygen and potassium and added a splash of trinitrotoluol and a spot of old brandy you got something that could be sold in America as champagne at a hundred and fifty dollars the case had to confess itself baffled.
(from Meet Mr. Mulliner, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
Externally, ffinch Hall was one of those gloomy, sombre country-houses which seem to exist only for the purpose of having horrid crimes committed in them. Even in his brief visit to the grounds, Wilfred had noticed fully half a dozen places which seemed incomplete without a cross indicating spot where a body was found by the police. It was the sort of a house where ravens croak in the front garden just before the death of the heir, and shrieks ring out from behind barred windows in the night. Nor was its interior more cheerful.
And, as for the personnel of the domestic staff, that was less exhilaraing than anything else about the place. It consisted of an aged cook who, as she bent over her cauldrons, looked like something out of a travelling company of Macbeth, touring the smaller towns of the North, and Murgatroyd, the butler, a huge, sinister man with a cast in one eye and an evil light in the other.
(from Meet Mr. Mulliner, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
When we got married I declared that we would never have an inside dog. Then we got an inside dog, and I declared that the dog would never sleep with us. Then he started sleeping on our bed. Now our granddog sometimes stays with us and sleeps UNDER the covers. So much for household discipline (sigh).
"My parrot," said Lady Lakenheath, including me in the conversation, "had a most peculiar attack last night. I cannot account for it. His health has always been so particularly good. I was dressing for dinner at the time, and so was not present at the outset of the seizure, but my niece, who was an eye-witness of what occurred, tells me he behaved in a most unusual way. Quite suddenly, it appears, he started to sing very excitedly; then, after a while, he stopped in the middle of a bar and appeared to be suffering. My niece, who is a most warm-hearted girl, was naturally exceedingly alarmed. She ran to fetch me, and when I came down poor Leonard was leaning against the side of his cage in an attitude of complete exhaustion, and all he would say was, "Have a nut!" He repeated this several times in a low voice, and then closed his eyes and tumbled of his perch. I was up half the night with him, but now he seems mercifully to have turned the corner. This afternoon he is almost his old bright self again, and has been talking in Swahili, always a sign that he is feeling cheerful."
(from "Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
Julia Ukridge was a civilized woman, and this handicapped her in the contest. For people may say what they like about the artificialities of modern civilization and hold its hypocrisies up to scorn, but there is no denying that it has one outstanding merit. Whatever its defects, civilization prevents a gently-bred lady of high standing in the literary world from calling a man a liar and punching him on the nose, however convinced she may be that he deserves it. Miss Ukridge's hands twitched, her lips tightened, and her eyes gleamed bluely - but she restrained herself.
(from "Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
For a man like myself, who finds at least eight hours of sleep essential if that schooogirl complexion is to be preserved, it was unfortunate that Leonard the parrot should have proved to be a bird of high-strung temperament, easily upset. The experiences which he had undergone since leaving home had, I was to discover, jarred his nervous system. He was reasonably tranquil during the hours preceding bedtime, and had started his beauty-sleep before I myself turned in; but at two in the morning something in th nature of a nightmare must have attacked him, for I was wrenched from slumber by the sounds of a hoarse soliloquy in what I took to be some native dialect. This lasted without a break till two-fifteen, when he made a noise like a steam-riveter for some moments; after which, apparently soothed, he fell asleep again. I dropped off at about three, and at three-thirty was awakened by the strains of a deep-sea chanty. From then on our periods of sleep never seemed to coincide.
(from "Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
The widow of the Administrator was tall, angular, and thin, with a sun-tanned face of a cast so determined as to make it seem a tenable theory that in the years previous to 1906 she had done at least her share of the administrating. Her whole appearance was that of a wman designed by Nature to instil law and order into the bosoms of boistrous cannibal kings. She surveyed me with an appraising glance, and then, as if reconciled to the fact that, poor specimen though I might be, I was probably as good as anything else that could be got for the money, received me into the fold by pressing the bell and ordering tea.
(from "Ukridge Rounds a Nasty Corner," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
