"A frown darkened her brow, and she kicked petulantly at a passing beetle." (from Eggs Beans and Crumpets)
We find expressions similar to this occasionally in the writings of Sir Pelham Wodehouse. This raises the question, Did the author carry a grudge against beetles? Had he had a particularly disturbing confrontation with one in his childhood? One wonders.
"Stamps" he said. "Yes, I am always ready to add to my collection, provided that what I am offered is of value and the price reasonable. Had you any figure in mind for these of yours, my dear Mulliner?"
Anselm said that he had been thinking of something in the neighbourhood of five thousand pounds, and Sir Leopold shook from stem to stern like a cat that has received half a brick in the short ribs. All his life the suggestion that he should part with large sums of money had shocked him.
(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
"They were engaged?" asked the Stout and Mild, beginning to get it.
"Secretly. Anselm did not dare to inform her uncle of the position of affairs, because all he had to marry on was his meagre stipend. He feared the wrath of that millionaire philatelist."
"Millionaire what?" asked a Small Bass.
"Sir Leopold," explained Mr. Mulliner, "collected stamps."
The Small Bass said that he had always thought that a philatelist was a man who was kind to animals.
"No," said Mr. Mulliner, "a stamp collector. Though many philatelists are, I believe, also kind to animals."
(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse0
"Could you lend me a tenner, Oofy, old man?"
"No, I couldn't."
"It would save my life."
"There," said Oofy, "you have put your finger on the insuperable objection to the scheme. I see no percentage in your being alive. I wish you were a corpse, preferably a mangled one. I should like to dance on your remains."
Bingo was surprised. "Dance on my remains?"
"All over them."
Bingo drew himself up. He had his pride.
"Oh?" he said. "Well, in that case, tinkerty tonk."
(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
Mrs. Bingo's Pekes were all in bed when he got there, and when he went and sprang the little stranger on them he was delighted with the ready affability with which they made him one of themselves. Too often, when you introduce a ringer into a gaggle of Pekes, there ensues a scrap like New Year's Eve in Madrid; but tonight, after a certain amount of tentative sniffing, the home team issued their OK, and he left them all curled up in their baskets like so many members of the Athenaeum.
(from Eggs, Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
Well, as it turned out, Oofy's appetite was the reverse of blunted. The extraordinary position in which he found himself - guest and not host to a fellow-member of the Drones - seemed to have put an edge on it. It is not too much to say that from the very outset he ate like a starving python. The light, casual way in which he spoke to the head waiter about hothouse grapes and asparagus froze Bingo to the marrow. And when - from force of habit, no doubt - he called for the wine list and ordered a nice, dry champagne, it began to look to Bingo as if the bill for this binge was going to resemble something submitted to Congress by President Roosevelt in aid of the American Farmer.
(from Eggs, Beans, and Crumpets by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
"Ah-hum!" said Mr. Pickering
The effect on Lord Wetherby was remarkable. To hear someone clear his throat at the back of a dark room, where there should rightfully be no throat to be cleared, would cause even your man of stolid habit a passing thrill. The thing got right in among Lord Wetherby's highly sensitive ganglions like an earthquake. He uttered a strangled cry, then dashed out and slammed the door behind him.
(from Uneasy Money, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)
