Looking at Uncle Tom

 Once more he became silent, staring before him with sombre eyes. Following his gaze, I saw that he was looking at an enlarged photograph of my Uncle Tom in some sort of Masonic uniform which stood on the mantelpiece. I've tried to reason with Aung Dehlia about this photograph for years, placing before her two alternative suggestions: (a) to burn the beastly thing; or (b) if she must preserve it, to shove me in another room when I come to stay. But she declines to accede. She says it's good for me. A useful discipline, she maintains, teaching me that there is a darker side to life and that we were not put into this world for pleasure only.

"Turn it to the wall, if it hurts you, Tuppy," I said gently.

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Moth-eaten bulldog

     He came listlessly into the room, and I was pained to observe that a night's rest had effected no improvement in the unhappy wreck's appearance. Indeed, I should have said, if anything, that he was looking rather more moth-eaten than when I had seen him last. If you can visualize a bulldog which has just been kicked in the ribs and had its dinner sneaked by the cat, you will have Hildebrand Glossop as he now stood before me.

    "Stap my vitals, Tuppy, old corpse," I said, concerned, "you're looking pretty blue around the rims."

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not the best approach

 No matter how much of a twitter he was in, he should have had sense enough to see that he was throwing a spanner into the works. No girl, when she has been led to expect that a man is about to pour forth his soul in a fervour or passion, like to find him suddenly shelving the whole topic in favour of an address on aquatic Salamandridae.

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Go drown yourself!

     "Good morning, sir," said Jeeves. "Mr. Fink-Nottle is not feeling well." 

    Nor was I. Gussie had begun to make low, bubbling noise, and I could no longer disguise it from myself that something must have gone seriously wrong with the works. I mean, I know marriage is a pretty solemn business and the realization that he is in for it frequently churns a chap up a bit, but I had never come across a case of a newly-engaged man taking it on the chin quite so completely as this.

    Gussie looked up. His eye was dull. He clutched the thatch.

    "Goodbye, Bertie," he said, rising. I seemed to spot an error.

    "You mean 'Hullo,' don't you?"

    "No, I don't. I mean goodbye. I'm off."

    "Off where?

    "To the kitchen garden. To drown myself."

    "Don't be an ass."

    "I'm not an ass . . . Am I an ass, Jeeves?"

    "Possibly a little injudicious, sir."

    "Drowning myself, you mean?

    "Yes, sir."

    "You think, on the whole, not drown myself?"

    "I should not advocate it, sir."

    "Very well, Jeeves. I accept your ruling. After all, it would be unpleasant for Mrs. Travers to find a swollen body floating in her pond."

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

 

Spare us your solutions

     "Perhaps you understand now why I want you to go and jump in that pond. I might have known that some hideous disaster would s trike this house like a thunderbolt if once you wriggled your way into it and started trying to be clever."

    Harsh words, of course, as from aunt to nephew, but I bore her no resentment. No doubt, if you looked at it from a certain angle, Bertram might be considered to have made something of a floater.

    "I am sorry."

    "What's the good of being sorry?"

    "I acted for what I deemed the best."

    "Another time try acting for the worst. Then we may possibly escape with a mere flesh wound."

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

In love with Her?!

     Though never for an instant faltering in my opinion that Augustus Fink-Nottle was Nature's final word in cloth-headed guffins, I liked the man, wished him sell, and could not have felt more deeply involved in the success of his wooing if I, and not he, had been the bloke under the ether.

    The thought that by this time he might quite easily have completed the preliminary pour parlers and be deep in an informal discussion of honeymoon plans, was very pleasant to me.

    Of course, considering the sort of girl Madeline Bassett was - stars and rabbits and all that, I mean - you might say that a sober sadness would have been more fitting. But in these matters you have got to realize that tastes differ. The impulse of right-thinking men might be to run a mile when they saw the Bassett, but for some reason she appealed to the depths in Gussie, so that was that.

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not his favorite female companion

It was not until I had reached the drawing-room and was enabled to take a square look at the Bassett that I found the debonair gaiety with which I had embarked on this affair beginning to wane a trifle. Beholding her at close range like this, I suddenly became cognizant of what I was in for. The thought of strolling with this rummy specimen undeniably gave me a most unpleasant sinking feeling. I could not but remember how often, when in her company at Cannes, I had gazed dumbly at her, wishing that some kindly motorist in a racing car would ease the situation by coming along and ramming her amidships. As I have already made abundantly clear, this girl was not one of my most congenial buddies.

(from Right Ho, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)