Of crawling to aunts

          "I told him I wouldn't have any more to do with him unless he asserted himself and stopped crawling to those aunts of his."
         "He crawls to his aunts, does he?"
         "Yes, the worm."
          I could not pass this. Better men than Esmond Haddock have crawled to their aunts, and I said so, but she didn't seem to be listening. Girls seldom listen to me, I've noticed.

( from The Mating Season, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

An abrupt surprise

I opened the door, accordingly, and was immediately knocked base over apex by some solid body with a tongue like an ant-eater's. This tongue it proceeded to pass enthusiastically over my upper slopes and, the mists clearing away, I perceived that what I was tangled up with was a shaggy dog of mixed parentage. And standing beside us, looking down like a mother watching the gambols of her first-born, was Catsmeat's sister Corky.

(from The Mating Season, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Sometimes blind dates work

Famous comedian Jerry Colonna met Florence Purcell on a blind date in 1930. They were married until his death in 1986.

Forget Sicily - stay away from Albania!

According to the Christian Science Monitor, from 1992 to 2008, there were 5000 people killed in vendettas or blood feuds in Albania.

That really was his name?

A glance at the young visitor was enough to tell me that he was low-spirited. And, mind you, it isn't often that you find the object under advisement in this condition. A singularly fizzy bird, as a rule. In fact, taking him by and large, I should say that of all the rollicking lads at the Drones Club, Claude Cattermole Pirbright is perhaps the most rollicking.

(from The Mating Season, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Makes it hard to find seating

If, as is advertised, all these gunslingers of the old West would only sit with their backs to a wall, that must have limited the seating space in eating establishments.

What do you have?

The Basenji breed has been called the "barkless dog" (although they can make bark-like sounds). I was just wondering what you would have if you had a disgruntled pig.

The Looney Bin

His lordship was no novice in the symptoms of insanity. Several of his best friends were residing in those palatial establishments set in pleasant parks and surrounded by high walls with broken bottles on them, to which the wealthy and aristocratic are wont to retire when the strain of modern life becomes too great. And one of his uncles by marriage, who believed that he was a loaf of bread, had made his first public statement on the matter in the smoking-room of this very castle. What Lord Emsworth did not know about lunatics was not worth knowing.

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Twice as good as a half-wit

He looked at Eve. He looked at her searchingly. Into her pleading eyes he directed a stare that sought to probe her soul, and saw there honesty, sympathy, and - better still - intelligence. He might have stood and gazed into Freddie's fishy eyes for weeks without discovering a tithe of such intelligence. His mind was made up. This girl was an ally. A girl of dash and vigour. A girl worth a thousand Freddies - not, however, reflected Mr. Keeble, that that was saying much.

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

It is just tough to be still

Miss Peavey eyed a clump of bushes some dozen yards farther down the drive. They were quivering slightly, as though they sheltered some alien body; and Miss Peavey, whose temper was apt to be impatient, registered a resolve to tell Edward Cootes that, if he couldn't hide behind a bush without dancing about like a cat on hot bricks, he had better give up his profession and take to selling jellied eels. In which, it may be mentioned, she had wronged her old friend. He had been as still as a statue until a moment before, when a large and excitable beetle had fallen down the space between his collar and neck, an experience which might well have tried the subtlest woodsman.

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Here's a new term of admiration

"Liz," said Mr. Cootes, lost in admiration, "when it comes to doping out a scheme, you're the snake's eyebrows!"

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

He botched this one

          "In this life, Comrade Cootes," said Psmith, "we must always distinguish between the Unlikely and the Impossible. It was unlikely, as you say, that you would meet any friend of McTodd's in this out-of-the-way spot; and you rashly ordered your movements on the assumption that it was impossible. With what result? The cry goes round the Underworld, 'Poor old Cootes has made a bloomer?'"
          "You needn't rub it in."

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Reckon they were kin?

Jill Ireland and Jeff Chandler

Not conceited, just convinced

"I think you're terribly conceited."

"Not at all," said Psmith. "Conceited? No, no. Success has not spoiled me."

"Have you had any success?"

"None whatsoever."

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Familiarity breeds contempt

The first few times I watched episodes of the old Dobie Gillis TV show, Bob Denver as beatnik Maynard G. Krebs was really funny. And I can imagine that back when the show was life, he was funny all the time, watching him once a week. However, these days when we have a collection of the shows and watch him several shows in a row, funny quickly becomes merely irritating. I mean, after all, no one can be that stupid!

Once again, concerning fish

To me, Miss Clarkson, from the very start, the fish business was what I can only describe as a wash-out. It nauseated my finer feelings. It got right in amongst my fibres. I had to rise and partake of  a simple breakfast at about four in the morning, after which I would make my way to Gillingsgate Market and stand for some hours knee-deep in dead fish of every description. A jolly life for a cat, no doubt, but a bit too thick for a Shropshire Psmith.

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

To my generation, he WAS beatnik

Maynard G. Krebs

Fishy subject

"Yes. He is a hard man, and he judges his fellows solely by their devotion to fish. I never in my life met a man so wrapped up in a subject. For years he has been practically a monomaniac on the subject of fish. So much so that he actually looks like one. It is as if he had taken one of those auto-suggestion courses and had kept saying to himself, 'Every day, in every way, I grow more and more like a fish.' His closest friends can hardly tell now whether he more nearly resembles a halibut or a cod. . . . But I am boring you again with this family gossip?"

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

King of the finny denizens

"Owing to a financial upheaval in my  branch of the family, I was until this morning at the beck and call of an uncle who unfortunately happens to be a Mackerel Monarch or a Sardine Sultan, or whatever these merchant princes are called who rule the fish market. He insisted on my going into the business to learn it from the bottom up, thinking, no doubt, that I would follow in his footsteps and eventually work my way to the position of a Whitehead Wizard. Alas! he was too sanguine. It was not to be," said Psmith solemnly, fixing an owl-like gaze on Miss Clarkson through his eyeglass.

(from Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

They have to be Old!

He went to the waiting room, and, having picked up a magazine from the table, settled down to rad a story in The Girl's Pet - the January number of the year 1919, for Employment Agencies, like dentists, prefer their literature of a matured vintage.

(From Leave It To Psmith, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse. Fans of old radio shows might recall that once, when they were trying to set up an office for the dentist who had moved to Pine Ridge, Lum and Abner were frustrated because they could not find any magazines that were old enough to put in the dentist's office.)