Thank you and toodle-pip

ALMOST three years to the day since my first weekly column of reminiscences, I have finally come to acknowledge that the cupboard is bare and it is time to draw proceedings to a close.

Thank you to every reader and commenter, some of whom I have come to regard as friends.

I will leave you with a final selection of gems from my idol PG Wodehouse.

***

A small boy with a face like a prune run over by a motor bus.

Galahad at Blandings

***

Aberdeen terriers, possibly owing to their heavy eyebrows, always seem to look at you as if they were in the pulpit of some particularly strict Scottish sect and you were a parishioner of dubious reputation sitting in the front row of the stalls.

 Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves

***

 As for her laugh, she guffawed more liberally than I have ever heard a woman guffaw. If there had been an aisle, she would have rolled in it. She was giving the impression of a hyena which had just heard a good one from another hyena.

 Much Obliged, Jeeves

***

John drew a deep breath. He was not one of those men who derive pleasure from parading their innermost feelings and discussing with others the secrets of their hearts. Hugo, in a similar situation, would have advertised his love like the hero of a musical comedy; he would have made the round of his friends, confiding in them and, when the supply of friends had given out, would have buttonholed the gardener. But John was different. To hear his aspirations put into bold words like this made him feel as if he were being divested of most of his more important garments in a crowded thoroughfare.

Money for Nothing

***

 Few coots could have had less hair . . . and any walrus would have been proud to possess the moustache at which he was puffing.

 Uncle Fred in the Springtime

***

‘Very good,’ I said coldly. ‘In that case, tinkerty-tonk.’ And I meant it to sting.

 Right Ho, Jeeves

***

 There would have been serious trouble between David and Jonathan if either had persisted in dropping catches off the other’s bowling.

 Mike

***

The fourth hole left him four down, and one had the feeling that he was lucky not to be five.

 Nothing Serious

***

‘Travel is highly educational, sir.’

‘I can’t do with any more education. I was full up years ago.’

The Code of the Woosters

***

The whole secret of success, if you were running a business and had Monty Bodkin working for you, was to get rid of him at the earliest possible moment.

Heavy Weather

***

He came in now in that wary manner peculiar to lawyers, looking from side to side as if expecting to see torts and malfeasances hiding behind the curtains and misdemeanours under the piano.

 If I Were You

***

The Sergeant of Police was calm, stolid and ponderous, giving the impression of being constructed of some form of suet.

 Frozen Assets

***

‘. . . a psychiatrist.’

 ‘A what?’

 ‘One of those fellows who ask you questions about your childhood and gradually dig up the reason why you go about shouting “Fire!” in crowded theatres. They find it’s because somebody took away your all-day sucker when you were six.’

 ‘I thought they were called headshrinkers.’

 ‘That, I believe, is the medical term.’

  A Pelican at Blandings

***

‘Could you tell me the correct time?’

‘Precisely eleven.’

 ‘Coo!’ said the girl. ‘I must hurry or I shall be late. I’m meeting a gentleman friend on the pier at half past ten.’

Nothing Serious

***

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – girls are rummy. Old Pop Kipling never said a truer word than when he made that crack about the f. of the s. being d. than the m.

 Right Ho, Jeeves

***

I don’t suppose he makes enough out of a novel to keep a midget in doughnuts for a week. Not a really healthy midget.

 The Luck of the Bodkins

***

The rich contralto of female novelist calling to its young had broken the stillness of the summer afternoon.

 Blandings Castle

***

The Agee woman told us for three quarters of an hour how she came to write her beastly book, when a simple apology was all that was required.

 The Girl in Blue

***

The butler was looking nervous, like Macbeth interviewing Lady Macbeth after one of her visits to the ‘spare room’.

Lord Emsworth and Others

***

‘Sir Jasper Finch-Farrowmere?’ said Wilfred.

‘ffinch-ffarrowmere,’ corrected the visitor, his sensitive ear detecting the capital letters.

Meet Mr Mulliner

***

‘I’ve got to take a few pints of soup to the deserving poor,’ said Myrtle. ‘I’d better set about it. Amazing the way these bimbos absorb soup. Like sponges.’

Eggs, Beans and Crumpets

***

Somewhere in the woods beyond the river a nightingale had begun to sing with all the full-throated zest of a bird conscious of having had a rave notice from the poet Keats.

 Ring for Jeeves

***

You can’t heave a brick in Hollywood without beaning an English elocution teacher. I am told there are English elocution teachers making good money in Hollywood who haven’t even got roofs to their mouths.

 Laughing Gas

***

She uttered a sound rather like an elephant taking its foot out of a mud hole in a Burmese teak forest.

Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen

***

He looked like a halibut which has just been asked by another halibut to lend it a couple of quid till next Wednesday.

 A Few Quick Ones

***

I felt that if the thing was to be smacked into, ’twere best smacked into quickly, as Shakespeare says.

 Joy in the Morning

***

I don’t know if you happen to be familiar with a poem called The Charge of the Light Brigade by the bird Tennyson whom Jeeves had mentioned when speaking of the fellow whose strength was the strength of ten . . . the thing goes, as you probably know,

Tum tiddle umpty pum

Tum tiddle umpty pum

Tum tiddle umpty pum

and this brought you to the snapperoo or pay-off which was ‘someone had blundered’. 

Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit

***

‘I was in musical comedy. I used to sing in the chorus, till they found out where the noise was coming from.’

The Luck of the Bodkins

We are the closest of friends. If Guy saw me drowning he would dive in to the rescue without a moment’s hesitation, and if I saw Guy drowning I would be the first to call for assistance.

Wodehouse in an introduction to his friend Guy Bolton’s Gracious Living Limited.

Old Jokes’ Home

I went to buy a train ticket to Paris and the clerk said ‘Eurostar?’ I said ‘Well, I’ve been on telly but I’m no Dean Martin.’ Still, at least it’s comfortable on Eurostar – it’s murder on the Orient Express.

A final PS from PG

Then he rose and began to pace the room in an overwrought sort of way, like a zoo lion who has heard the dinner-gong go and is hoping the keeper won’t forget him in the general distribution.

PG Wodehouse: Right Ho, Jeeves