Aunts are worse than cobras down the chimney

 His heart was heavy. It was a kindly heart, and from the very first it had been deeply stirred by the stormy romance of Mr. Ronald and his young lady. He wished that life were as the writers of the detective stories, to which he had become to addicted, portrayed it. In those, no matter what obstacles Fate might interpose in the shape of gangs, shots in the night, underground cellars, sinister Chinamen, poisoned asparagus and cobras down the chimney, the hero always got his girl. The significance of the presence in the library of Lady Constance Keeble and Lady Julia Fish had not escaped him. He feared that it meant the worst.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Be sure to stand downwind

     "Beach, go and bring Pirbright here."

    "He shall do nothing of the kind," said Lady Constance sharply. "The idea of bringing Pirbright into the library!"

    It was not often that Beach found himself in agreement with the chatelaine of Blandings, but he could not but support her attitude now. Like all butlers, he held definite views on the sanctity of the home and frowned upon attempts on the part of the outside staff to enter it - especially when, like Pirbright they smelt so very strongly of pigs. Five minutes of that richly scented man in the library, felt Beach, and you would have to send the place to the cleaner's.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A friend of pigs

     "You think you can cope with this pig?"

    "Certainly. I am not afraid of pigs. Pigs like me."

    At these words, Monty found his respect for a breed of animal which he had always rather admired waning a good deal. No animal of the right sort, he felt, could like Lord Tilbury.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not a successful interview

     He had never, he realized, been exactly what you might call sanguine when making his way to the Emsworth Arms to plead with Lord Tilbury to act like a sportsman and a gentleman. All the ruling of the form-book, he knew, was against him. And yet he had nursed, despite the whisperings of Reason, a sort of thin, sickly hope. This hope the proprietor of the Mammoth had slain dead within five minutes of his arrival.

    When Monty had claimed consideration on the ground that it was through no fault of his own that he was not charging in, manuscript in hand, Lord Tilbury had remained mute and stony. When he had gone on to point out that Pilbeam could not have got the thing but for him, Lord Tilbury had uttered a sharp, sneering snort. And when, as happened a little farther on in the scene, Monty had called his former employer a fat, double-crossing wart-hog, the latter had terminated the interview by walking away with his hands under his coat-tails.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not fond of pigs

He had only himself to blame - that was what made it all the more bitter. If he had not so casually given his casting vote in favour of shifting this infernal pig to new quarters, he would not now have been faced by a problem which every moment seemed to become more difficult of situation.

 For Pilbeam was afraid of pigs. He seemed to remember having read somewhere that if you go into a pig's sty and the pig doesn't now you it comes for you like a tiger and chews you to ribbons. Greedy though he was for Lord Tilbury's gold, something told him that never, no matter how glittering this reward, would he be able to bring himself to go into that sty in quest of the manuscript, guarded as it now was by this ravening beast. The Prodigal Son might have mixed with these animals on a clubby basis, but Percy Pilbeam knew himself to be incapable of imitating him.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Champagne for a snake

 Beach withdrew to execute the commission. His demeanour, as he passed from the hall, was downcast. There in a nutshell, he was feeling, you had the tragedy of a butler's life. His not to reason why; his not to discriminate between the deserving and the undeserving; his but to go and bring bottles of champagne to marcelled-haired snakes to whom he would greatly have deserved to supply straight cyanide.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Beach is NOT pleased

     "Her ladyship is expressing a desire to see you, sir," said Beach, regarding him with restrained horror and loathing. 

    The recent exchange of remarks between Monty Bodkin and the Hon. Galahadd in his presence had confirmed the butler in his view that of all the human serpents that ever wriggled their way into a respectable castle this private investigator was the worst. Knowing what the manuscript of the Reminiscences meant to Mr. Ronald and his betrothed, Beach, had he been younger and slimmer and in better condition and not a butler, could - for two pins - have taken Percy Pilbeam's unpleasant neck in his hands and twisted it into a lover's knot.

    His physique and his circumstances being as they were, he merely delivered the message he had been instructed to deliver. As far as any hostile demonstration was concerned, he had to be content with letting his lip curl.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A man set up for a fall

 In his bearing, as he hurried along the path that skirted the kitchen garden - in the oily smirk beneath his repellent moustache, in the jaunty tilt of his snub nose, even in the terraced sweep of the brilliantine swamps of his corrugated hair - there was the look of a man who is congratulating himself on a neat bit of work. Brains, reflected Percy Pilbeam - that was what you needed in this life. Brains and the ability to seize your opportunity when it was offered to you.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Not a good choice

 Pausing halfway to the door, the Hon. Galahad saw that a peculiar expression had come into his nephew's face. An expression a little like that of a young Hindu fakir who, having settled himself on his first bed of spikes, is beginning to wish that he had chosen one of the easier religions.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Come on, thunderstorms!

     "Thunderstorms often upset people. Are you afraid of thunder?"

    "Oh, no."

    "Lots of girls are. I knew one once who, whenever there was a thunderstorm, used to fling her arms around the neck of the nearest man, hugging and kissing him till it was all over. Purely nervous reaction, of course, but you should have seen the young fellows flocking round as soon as the sky began to get a little overcast. Gladys, her name was. Gladys Twistleton. Beautiful girl with large, melting eyes. Married a fellow in the Blues called Harringay. I'm told that the way he used to clear the drawing-room during the early years of their married life at the first suspicion of a rumble was a sight to be seen and remembered."

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Verbal free for all

 This spirited outburst led to a certain amount of rather confused debate. Lord Tilbury said that he did not propose to have young popinjays taking that tone with him; while Monty, on his side, wished to be informed who Lord Tilbury was calling a popinjay. Lord Tilbury then said that Monty was a bungler and Monty said, Well, dash it, Lord Tilbury had told him to be a burglar, and Lord Tilbury said he had not said "burglar," he had said "bungler," and Monty said, What did he mean, bungler, and Lord Tilbury explained that by the expression "bungler," he had intended to signify a wretched, feckless, blundering, incompetent imbecile. He added that an infant of six could have found the manuscript, and Monty, in a striking passage, was making a firm offer to give any bloodhound in England a shilling if it could do better than he had done, when the argument stopped as abruptly as it had started. Childish voices had begun to prattle close at hand and it was evident that one of those picnic parties from the river was approaching.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Stick with the Emsworth Arms

 The advice one would give to every young man starting life is, on arriving in Market Blandings on a warm afternoon, to go to the Emsworth Arms. Good stuff may be bought there, and of all the admirable hostelries in the town it possesses the largest and shadiest garden. Green and inviting, dotted about with rustic tables and snug summerhouses, it stretches all the way down to the banks of the river; so that the happy drinker, already pleasantly in need of beer, may acquire a new and deeper thirst from watching family parties toil past in rowboats. On a really sultry day a single father, labouring at the oars of a raft loaded down below the Plimsoll mark by a wife, a wife's sister, a cousin by marriage, four children, a dog, and a picnic basket, has sometimes led to such a rush of business at the Emsworth Arms that seasoned barmaids have staggered beneath the strain.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The Pelican Club

 In Lord Emsworth's eyes, as he gazed at his brother, there was the reverential look of a disciple at the feet of his master. He had always known, he told himself, that as a practical adviser in matters having to do with the seamier side of life the other was unsurpassed. It was the result, he supposed of the environment in which he had spent his formative years. Membership of the old Pelican Club might not elevate a man socially, but there was no doubt about its educative properties. If it dulled the moral sense, it undoubtedly sharpened the intellect.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A non-dieter

 Between Empress of Blandings and these two human beings who ministered to her comfort there was a sharp contrast in physique. Lord Emsworth was tall and thin and scraggy, Pirbright tall and thin and scraggier. The Empress, on the other hand, could have passed in a dim light for a captive balloon, fully inflated and about to make its trial trip. The modern craze for slimming had found no votary in her. She liked her meals large and regular, and had never done a educing exercise in her life.

(from Heavy Weather, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Take a chair

     And a moment late in came a bloke. Obviously not the Colonel, for Myrtle and the O.B.E. gave no sign of recognition. Then who? The man was a perfect stranger to me. However, I played the host.

    "Good afternoon," I said, affably.

    "Afternoon," said the bloke.

    "Take a chair," I said.

    "I'm going to take all the chairs," he said. "And the sofa, too. I'm from the Mammoth Furnishing Company, and the cheque for the deposit on this stuff has been returned Refer to Drawer."

    It is not too much to say, Corky, that I reeled. Yes, laddie, your old friend tottered and would have fallen had he not clutched at a chair. And, from the look in the bloke's eyes, it began to seem that my chances of clutching at that particular chair were likely to be very soon a thing of the past.

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Just get it open!

     "Go on! What are you waiting for?" I fumbled at the handle.

    "I don't seem to be able to get the door open," I explained meekly.

    "Tchah!" said Miss Ukridge, swooping down. One of the rooted convictions of each member of the human race is that he or she is able without difficulty to open a door which has baffled their fellows. She took the handle and gave it a vigorous tug. The door creaked, gut remained unresponsive.

    "What's the matter with the thing?" exclaimed Mis Ukridge petulantly.

    "It's stuck."

    "I know it's stuck. Please do something at once. Good gracious, Mr. Corcoran, surely you are at least able to open a drawing-room door."

    It seemed, put in that tone of voice, a feat sufficiently modest for a man of good physique and fair general education; but I was reluctantly compelled to confess, after a few more experiments, that it was beyond my powers. This appeared to confirm my hostess in the opinion, long held by her, that I was about the most miserable worm that an inscrutable Providence had ever permitted to enter the world.

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Thrown out on my ear again

    You know the position of affairs when I go to live with my Aunt Julia. She feeds me and buys me clothes, but for some reason best known to her own distorted mind it is impossible to induce her to part with a little ready cash. The consequence was that, falling in love with Mabel as I had done and needing a quid or two for current expenses, I had had to rely on my native ingenuity and resource. It was absolutely imperative that I should give the girl a few flowers and chocolates from time to time, and this runs into money. So, seeing a rather juicy clock doing nothing on the mantelpiece of the spare bedroom, I had sneaked it off under my coat and put it up the spout at the local pawnbroker's. And now, apparently, in some devious and underhanded manner she had discovered this.

    Well, it was no good arguing. When my Aunt Julia is standing over you with her sleeves rolled up preparatory to getting a grip on the scruff of your neck and the seat of your trousers, it has always been my experience that words are useless. The only thing to do is to drift away and trust to Time, the great healer. Some forty minutes later, therefore, a solitary figure might have been observed legging it to the station with a suitcase. I was out in the great world once more.

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Get it over with!

 Of all the uncounted millions who in their time have listened to bands playing "Poet and Peasant," few can ever have listened with such a restless impatience as did Frederick Fitch-Fitch on this occasion. Time was flying. Every second was precious. At any moment disaster might befall. And the band went on playing as if it had taken on a life-job. It seemed to him an eternity before the final oom-pom-pa.

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

He obviously wanted two girlfriends

     "Oh, Freddie!" she cried. "The worst has happened."

    Freddie gulped. "Rackstraw?"

    "Yes," said Annabel. "But how did you know about him?"

    "He came to me, bubbling over a good deal with veiled menaces and what not," explained Freddie. He frowned, and eyed her closely. "Why didn't you tell me you had been engaged to that bird?"

    "I didn't think you would be interested. It was just a passing girlish fancy."

    "You're sure? You didn't really love this blighted prestidigitator?"

    "No, no. I was dazzled for a while, as any girl might have been when he sawed me in half, but then you came along and I saw that I had been mistaken, and that you were the only man in the world for me."

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Invalidic arrogance

 For though few people are aware of it - so true is it that half the world does not know how the other half lives - there is no section of the community in which class-consciousness is so rampant as among invalids. The ancient Spartans, one gathers, were far more cordial towards their Helots, and the French aristocrat of pre-Revolution days tended to be a little stand-offish with his tenantry, but their attitude was almost back-slapping compared with that of - let us say - the man who has been out in Switzerland taking insulin for his diabetes towards one who is simply undergoing treatment from the village doctor for an ingrowing toenail. And this was particularly so, of course, in those places where invalids collect in gangs - Baden-Baden, for example, or Hot Springs, Virginia, or, as in Sir Aylmer's case, Droitgate Spa.

(from Eggs Beans and Crumpets, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)