P. G. Wodehouse

notoriously a tough egg

“I heard a story the other day. I can’t quite re­mem­ber it, but it was about a chap who snored and dis­turbed the neigh­bours, and it ended, ‘It was his ad­en­oids that ad­en­oid them.’ ”

“And you can’t get away from it that, fun­da­ment­ally, Jeeves’s idea is sound. In a strik­ing cos­tume like Mephis­topheles, I might quite eas­ily pull off some­thing pretty im­press­ive. Co­l­our does make a dif­fer­ence. Look at newts. Dur­ing the court­ing sea­son the male newt is bril­liantly col­oured. It helps him a lot.”
“But you aren’t a male newt.”
“I wish I were. Do you know how a male newt pro­poses, Ber­tie? He just stands in front of the fe­male newt vi­brat­ing his tail and bend­ing his body in a semi­circle. I could do that on my head. No, you wouldn’t find me grous­ing if I were a male newt.”
“But if you were a male newt, Madeline Bas­sett wouldn’t look at you. Not with the eye of love, I mean.”
“She would, if she were a fe­male newt.”
“But she isn’t a fe­male newt.”
“No, but sup­pose she was.”
“Well, if she was, you wouldn’t be in love with her.”
“Yes, I would, if I were a male newt.”

There was a death-where-is-thy-sting-full­ness about her man­ner which I found dis­taste­ful.

he can’t stick the South of France at any price.

aqua­plan­ing

Eton and Har­row match.

dif­fid­ence

Tal­lu­lah Bank­head

Tal­lu­lah Bank­head