An enjoyable visit to the city

     "Only too glad to have been able to render you this little service, Mr. Roddis," said Lord Ickenham. 
"Well, I must be moving. I have an appointment. Pleasant after the rain, is it not? Come, Percy."

    He lugged Pongo off.

    "So that," he said, with satisfaction, "is that. On these visits of mine to the metropolis, my boy, I always make it my aim, if possible, to spread sweetness and light. I look about me, even in a foul hole like Mitching Hill, and I ask myself - How can I leave this foul hole a better and happier foul hole than I found it? And if I see a chance, I grab it. Here is our omnibus. Spring aboard, my boy, and on our way home we will be sketching out rough plans for the evening. If the old Leicester Grill is still in existence, we might look in there. It must be fully thirty-five years since I was last thrown out of the Leicester Grill. I wonder who is the bouncer there now."

(from Young Men in Spats, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A discussion about woolly mufflers

 "This morning, as I was leaving home, I had a rather painful disagreement with your aunt. She said the weather was treacherous and wished me to take my woolly muffler. I replied that the weather was not treacherous and that I would be dashed if I took my woolly muffler. Eventually, by the exercise of an iron will, I had my way, and I ask you, my dear boy, to envisage what will happen if I return with a cold in the head. I shall sink to the level of a fifth-class power. Next time I came to London, it would be with a liver pad and a respirator."

(from Young Men in Spats, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

How to judge a baby contest

 He kept his head, however. This was the first time he had ever been let in for anything of this nature, but a sort of instinct told him to adopt the policy followed by all experienced judges at these affairs - viz. to ignore the babies absolutely and concentrate entirely on the mothers. So many points for ferocity of demeanour, that is to say, and so many for possibility of knife concealed in stocking, and so on and so forth. You ask any curate how he works the gaff at the annual Baby Competition in his village, and he will tell you that these, broadly, are the lines on which he goes.

(from Young Men in Spats, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Perpetually in love

 I suppose, all in all, Freddie Widgeon has been in love at first sight with possibly twenty-seven girls in the course of his career: but hitherto everything had been what you might call plain sailing. I mean, he would flutter round for a few days and then the girl, incensed by some floater on his part or possibly merely unable to stand the sight of him any longer, would throw him out on his left ear, and that would be that. Everything pleasant and agreeable and orderly, as you might say. But this was different. Here he had come up against a new element, the jealous rival, and it was beginning to look not so good.

(from Young Men in Spats, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

No one likes the honorable Galahad

     There came the sound of wheels grinding to a standstill on the gravel outside the front door.

    "Clarence," said Gally.

    "And Mr. Landseer."

    "Don't say 'And Mr. Landseer' in that soupy tone of voice, said Gally sternly. "He hasn't come to steal the spoons."

    "If he is a friend of yours, I should imagine that he is quite capable of doing so. Is he wanted by the police?"

    "How I sympathize with the police," said Lady Hermione. "I know just how they feel."

(from Full Moon, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Painting of a pickled porker

 Freddie, hastening to the bed and gazing down at the canvas which lay upon it, had started back like one who sees some dreadful sight. He was now replacing his monocle in his eye, preparatory to trying again, and Bill looked at him dully.

"You notice something wrong, too?"

"Wrong? My dear old bird!"

"Don't forget it's not finished."

Freddie shook his head. "It's no good taking that line, Blister. Thank heaven it isn't. One wouldn't want a thing like that to spread any further. What on earth made you depict this porker as tight?"

"Tight?"

"The pig I see here is a pig that has obviously been on the toot of a lifetime for days on end. Those glassy eyes. That weak smile. I've seen old Tippy look just like that."

(from Full Moon, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Like a merry-go-round

     Many lovers in his position might have consoled themselves with the reflection that Freddie, being now a married man, was presumably out of the race for Veronica Wedge's hand and heart. But Tipton had had the wrong sort of upbringing to permit of his drawing comfort from any thought like that. The son of parents who after marrying each other had almost immediately started marrying other people with a perseverance worthy of a better cause, his had been one of those childhoods where the faintly bewildered offspring finds himself passed from hand to hand like a medicine ball. And, grown to riper years, he had seen among his friends and acquaintance far too much of that Ex-Wife's Heart Balm Society Love Tangle stuff to be a believer in the durability of the married state.

    That very Doris Jimpson, of whom he had once supposed himself enamoured, had become Doris Boole, Doris Busbridge, and Doris Applejohn in such rapid succession that the quickness of the hand almost deceived the eye.

(from Full Moon, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)