"Honey, things didn't go well"

     "How did you get on?"

    "Not too well."

    "I thought as much."

    It had taken great perception to bring her to this conclusion. Even at a distance he would have struck her as being on the somber side. To be obliged to retreat in disorder from a stricken battlefield always tends to lower the spirits. Napoleon, who had this experience at Moscow, made no secret of the fact that he did not enjoy it, and Jerry, going through the same sort of thing at Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-Vale, was definitely not at his perkiest. One glance had been enough to tell Jane that it was no tale of triumph that he had come to relate. Just so might a knight of old have looked when about to confess to his damsel that he had been unhorsed in the opening round of the big tournament.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Keep reading

     It was perhaps an hour later, getting on for half past four, that Crispin, returning to the library to avoid R. B. Chisholm, who wanted to talk to him about the situation in the Middle East, found Chippendale in a chair with his feet on a table, reading a book of sermons.

    He seemed to be glad to be interrupted, though he was a man who sorely needed all the sermons he could get his hands on.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

No problem at all!

     "I don't know how to search a room."

    "You'll pick it up as you go along. For heaven's sake, stop making all this heavy weather over and absurdly simple task well within the scope of a mentally retarded child of six. You'd think I was asking you to climb Moun Everest. You ought to be able to go through Barney Clayborne's effects in twenty minutes."

    A strong suspicion presented itself to Jerry that this was an underestimate, and his flesh crept briskly at the thought of what awaited him at Mellingham Hall, Mellingham-in-the-vale, telephone number Mellingham 631, but he could see that it was useless to oppose his uncle's wishes.

    "All right," he said tonelessly.

    "Splendid," said Willoughby. "There's an excellent train at about seven. I'll tell Crispin to expect you."

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Loud, was he?

     "Have you looked everywhere?" This query, like the previous one, seemed to give offense.

    "Did you say you had mislaid your spectacles?"

    "No, I did not say I had mislaid my spectacles."

    "I'm always mislaying my spectacles.

    "Curse your spectacles!"

    "Yes, Bill."

    This short digression on the subject of aids to vision seemed for some reason to have had a good effect on Willoughby, slightly restoring his calm. When he resumed the conversation, his voice, though still retaining something of the robustness of that of an annoyed mate of a tramp steamer, was quieter.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Too many sweethearts

 It was a problem that needed all the thought he could give it. The recent encounter had deepened his conviction that there was only one girl in the world he could possibly marry, and as of even date he could see no way to avoid marrying another. An impasse, if ever there was one. King Solomon and Brigham Young would have taken it in their stride, but he could see no solution.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A good review

     "You said you only read law books."

    "Except when I find a Morning's at Seven," said Homer, coming within an ace of adding, dear lady. "I make an exception in the case of delightful, dainty works that make me feel as if I were sitting beside a rippling brook, listening to its silver music. It had what so few books have nowadays - charm."

    Well put, thought Homer, and Vera thought so, too. There had been a few reviews of Morning's at Seven, but only in obscure provincial papers and only things like "will help to pass an idle hour" and "not unreadable." This was the real stuff.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concerning flights to the moon

 Mr. Scrope took a seat and settled himself to wait until Mr. Scrope should find himself at liberty. He was an elderly man with thinning hair, watery blue eyes and a drooping mustache, and he was wearing the anxious look so often seen on the faces of elderly men with thinning hair when they are about to try to borrow money from their younger brothers. From time to time a twitching shudder ran through his gaunt frame. The recent exchanges on the subject of Scropes had robbed him of the little confidence he had possessed when starting out on this mission, and the longer he sat, the less did it seem to him probable that his brother Willoughby, good fellow though he was and kindly disposed though he had shown himself in the past to applications for loans on a smaller scale, could be relied on for the stupendous one of two hundred and three pounds, six shillings and fourpence - a sum roughly equivalent, or so it appeared to Crispin's fevered mind, to what it costs to put a man on the moon.

(from The Girl in Blue, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)