"Never can understand a word that character says," he would mutter peevishly to his wife as the Fool went bounding about the throne room jingling his bells. "Why on earth do you encourage him? It was you who started him off this morning. All that nonsense about crows!"
"I only asked him how many crows can nest in a grocer's jerkin. Just making conversation."
"And what was his reply? Tinkling like a xylophone, he gave that awful cackling laugh of his and said 'A full dozen at cockcrow, and something less under the dog star, by reason of the dew, which lies heavy on men taken with the scurvy'. Was that sense?”
"It was humour."
"Who says so?"
"Shakespeare says so."
"Who's Shakespeare?"
"All right, George."
"I never heard of any Shakespeare."
"I said all right, George. Skip it."
"Well, anyway, you can tell him from now on to keep his humour to himself, and if he hits me on the head just once more with that bladder of his, he does it at his own risk. Every I time he gets within arm's reach of me—socko! And for that I pay him a penny a week, not deductible."
Humourists are often rather gloomy men, and what makes them so is the sense they have of being apart from the herd, of being, as one might say, the eczema on the body politic. They are looked down on by the intelligentsia, patronized by the critics and generally regarded as outside the pale of literature. People are very serious today, and the writer who does not take them seriously is viewed with concern and suspicion.
"Fiddle while Rome burns, would you?" they say to him, and treat him as an outcast.
I think we should all be sorry for humourists and try to be very kind to them, for they are so vulnerable. You can blot the sunshine from their lives in an instant by telling them you don't see what's so funny in that, and if there is something funny in it, you can take all the heart out of them by calling them facetious or describing them as 'mere humourists'. A humourist who has been called mere not only winces. He frets. He refuses to eat his cereal. He goes about with his hands in his pockets and his lower lip jutting out, kicking stones and telling himself that the lot of a humourist is something that ought not to happen to a dog, and probably winds up by going in for 'sick' humour like Lenny Bruce, and the trouble about being like Lenny Bruce is that the cops are always arresting you, which must cut into your time rather annoyingly.
This is no doubt the reason why in these grey modern days you are hardly ever able to find a funny story in print, and in the theatre it is even worse. Playwrights nowadays are writing nothing but that grim stark stuff, and as about ten out of every twelve plays produced perish in awful agonies, I don't think they have the right idea. If only the boys would stop being so frightfully powerful and significant and give us a little comedy occasionally, everything would get much brighter. I am all for incest and tortured souls in moderation, but a good laugh from time to time never hurt anybody.
And nobody has laughed in a theatre for years. All you hear is the soft, sibilant sound of creeping flesh, punctuated now and then by a sharp intake of breath as somebody behind the footlights utters one of those four-letter words hitherto confined to the cosy surroundings of the lower type of barroom. (Odd to reflect, by the way, that when the word 'damn' was first spoken on the New York stage—in one of Clyde Fitch's plays, if I remember rightly—there was practically a riot. Police raided the joint, and I am not sure the military were not called out.)
The process of getting back to comedy would, of course, be very gradual. At first a laugh during- the progress of a play would have a very eerie effect. People would wonder where the noise was coming from and would speculate as to whether somebody was having some sort of fit. "Is there a doctor in the house?" would be the cry. But they would get into the way of it after a while, and it would not be so very long before it would be quite customary to see audiences looking and behaving not like bereaved relatives at a funeral but as if they were enjoying themselves.
The most melancholy humour today is, I suppose, the Russian, and one can readily understand why. If you live in a country where, when winter sets in, your nose turns blue and has to be rubbed with snow, it is difficult to be rollicking even when primed with two or three stiff vodkas.
Khrushchev in the days when he was out and about was probably considered Russia's top funny man—at least if you were domiciled in Moscow and didn't think so, you would have done well to keep it to yourself—and he never got beyond the Eisenhower golf joke and the Russian proverb, and if there is anything less hilarious than a Russian proverb, we have yet to hear of it. The only way to laugh at one was to watch Khrushchev and see when he did it.
"In Russia," he used to say, making his important speech to the Presidium, "we have a proverb—A chicken that crosses the road does so to get to the other side, but wise men dread a bandit," and then his face would sort of split in the middle and his eyes would disappear into his cheeks like oysters going down for the third time in an oyster stew, and the comrades would realize that this was the big boffola and that if they were a second late with the appreciative laughter, their next job would be running a filling station down Siberia way. There may come a time when Russia will rise to He-and-She jokes and stories about two Irishmen who were walking along Broadway, but I doubt it. I cannot see much future for Russian humourists. They have a long way to go before they can play the Palladium.
I see, looking back on what I have written, that I have carelessly omitted to say what Humour is. (People are always writing articles and delivering lectures telling us, generally starting off with the words 'Why do we laugh?' One of these days someone is going to say 'Why shouldn't we?' and they won't know which way to look.) I think I cannot do better than quote what Dr. Edmund Bergler says in his book on The Sense of Humour. Here it comes:
'Laughter is a defence against a defence. Both manoeuvres are instituted by the subconscious ego. The cruelty of the superego is counteracted by changing punishment into inner pleasure. The superego reproaches the ego for the inner pleasure, and the ego then institutes two new defences, the triad of the mechanism of orality and laughter.'
What do you mean, you don't know what he means? Clear as crystal. Attaboy, Edmund. Good luck to you, and don't laugh at any wooden nickels.
Table of Contents
Praise for P.G. Wodehouse
About the Author
By the Same Author
Title Page
Copyright Page
Title
CHAPTER ONE 2
3
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE 2
3
CHAPTER FOUR 2
3
4
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX 2
CHAPTER SEVEN 2
3
4
5
6
CHAPTER EIGHT 2
3
4
CHAPTER NINE 2
3
4
5
CHAPTER TEN 2
3
CHAPTER ELEVEN 2
3
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN 2
3
4
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Extract: Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen CHAPTER TWO
www.wodehouse.co.uk
P.G. Wodehouse
‘The ultimate in comfort reading because nothing bad ever happens in P.G. Wodehouse land. Or even if it does, it’s always sorted out by the end of the book. For as long as I’m immersed in a P.G. Wodehouse book, it’s possible to keep the real world at bay and live in a far, far nicer, funnier one where happy endings are the order of the day’ Marian Keyes
‘You should read Wodehouse when you’re well and when you’re poorly; when you’re travelling, and when you’re not; when you’re feeling clever, and when you’re feeling utterly dim. Wodehouse always lifts your spirits, no matter how high they happen to be already’ Lynne Truss
‘P.G. Wodehouse remains the greatest chronicler of a certain kind of Englishness, that no one else has ever captured quite so sharply, or with quite as much wit and affection’ Julian Fellowes
‘Not only the funniest English novelist who ever wrote but one of our finest stylists. His world is perfect, his stories are perfect, his writing is perfect. What more is there to be said?’ Susan Hill
‘One of my (few) proud boasts is that I once spent a day interviewing P.G. Wodehouse at his home in America. He was exactly as I’d expected: a lovely, modest man. He could have walked out of one of his own novels. It’s dangerous to use the word genius to describe a writer, but I’ll risk it with him’ John Humphrys
‘The incomparable and timeless genius – perfect for readers of all ages, shapes and sizes!’ Kate Mosse
‘A genius … Elusive, delicate but lasting. He created such a credible world that, sadly, I suppose, never really existed but what a delight it always is to enter it and the temptation to linger there is sometimes almost overwhelming’ Alan Ayckbourn
‘Wodehouse was quite simply the Bee’s Knees. And then some’ Joseph Connolly
‘Compulsory reading for any one who has a pig, an aunt – or a sense of humour!’ Lindsey Davis
‘I constantly find myself drooling with admiration at the sublime way Wodehouse plays with the English language’ Simon Brett
‘I’ve recorded all the Jeeves books, and I can tell you this: it’s like singing Mozart. The perfection of the phrasing is a physical pleasure. I doubt if any writer in the English language has more perfect music’ Simon Callow
‘Quite simply, the master of comic writing at work’ Jane Moore
‘To pick up a Wodehouse novel is to find oneself in the presence of genius – no writer has ever given me so much pure enjoyment’ John Julius Norwich
‘P.G. Wodehouse is the gold standard of English wit’ Christopher Hitchens
‘Wodehouse is so utterly, properly, simply funny’ Adele Parks
‘To dive into a Wodehouse novel is to swim in some of the most elegantly turned phrases in the English language’ Ben Schott
‘P.G. Wodehouse should be prescribed to treat depression. Cheaper, more effective than valium and far, far more addictive’ Olivia Williams
‘My only problem with Wodehouse is deciding which of his enchanting books to take to my desert island’ Ruth Dudley Edwards
The author of almost a hundred books and the creator of Jeeves, Blandings Castle, Psmith, Ukridge, Uncle Fred and Mr Mulliner, P.G. Wodehouse was born in 1881 and educated at Dulwich College. After two years with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank he became a full-time writer, contributing to a variety of periodicals including Punch and the Globe. He married in 1914. As well as his novels and short stories, he wrote lyrics for musical comedies with Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern, and at one time had five musicals running simultaneously on Broadway. His time in Hollywood also provided much source material for fiction.
At the age of 93, in the New Year’s Honours List of 1975, he received a long-overdue knighthood, only to die on St Valentine ‘s Day some 45 days later.
Some of the P.G. Wodehouse titles to be published by Arrow in 2008
JEEVES
The Inimitable Jeeves
Carry On, Jeeves
Very Good, Jeeves
Thank You, Jeeves
Right Ho, Jeeves
The Code of the Woosters
Joy in the Morning
The Mating Season
Ring for Jeeves
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit
Jeeves in the Offing
Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves
Much Obliged, Jeeves
Aunts Aren’t Gentlemen
UNCLE FRED
Cocktail Time
Uncle Dynamite
BLANDINGS
Something Fresh
Leave it to Psmith
Summer Lightning
Blandings Castle
Uncle Fred in the Springtime
Full Moon
Pigs Have Wings
Service with a Smile
A Pelican at Blandings
MULLINER
Meet Mr Mulliner
Mulliner Nights
Mr Mulliner Speaking
GOLF
The Clicking of Cuthbert
The Heart of a Goof
OTHERS
Piccadilly Jim
Ukridge
The Luck of the Bodkins
Laughing Gas
A Damsel in Distress
The Small Bachelor
Hot Water
Summer Moonshine
The Adventures of Sally
Money for Nothing
The Girl in Blue
Big Money
P.G. WODEHOUSE
A Pelican at Blandings
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A Pelican at Blandings
CHAPTER ONE
The summer day was drawing to a close and dusk had fallen on Blandings Castle, shrouding from view the ancient battlements, dulling the silver surface of the lake and causing Lord Emsworth’s supreme Berkshire sow Empress of Blandings to leave the open air portion of her sty and withdraw into the covered shed where she did her sleeping. A dedicated believer in the maxim of early to bed and early to rise, she always turned in at about this time. Only by getting its regular eight hours can a pig keep up to the mark and preserve that schoolgirl complexion.
Deprived of her society, which he had been enjoying since shortly after lunch, Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, the seigneur of this favoured realm, pottered dreamily back to the house, pottered dreamily to the great library which was one of its features, and had just pottered dreamily to his favourite chair, when Beach, his butler, entered bearing a laden tray. He gave it the vague stare which had so often incurred the censure —’Oh, for goodness sake, Clarence, don’t stand there looking like a goldfish’—of his sisters Constance, Dora, Charlotte, Julia and Hermione.
‘Eh?’ he said. ‘What?’ he added.
‘Your dinner, m’lord.’
Lord Emsworth’s face cleared. He was telling himself that he might have known that there would be some simple explanation for that tray. Trust Beach to have everything under control.
‘Of course, yes. Dinner. Quite. Always have it at this time, don’t I? And recently been having it here, though
I can’t remember for what reason. Why am I having dinner in the library, Beach?’
‘I gathered that your lordship preferred not to share the meal in the dining-room with Mr. Chesney.’
‘Mr. who?’
‘Mr. Howard Chesney, m’lord, Mr. Frederick’s friend from America.’
The puzzled frown that had begun to gather on Lord Emsworth’s forehead vanished like breath off a razor blade. Once more Beach with that lucid brain of his had dispelled the fog of mystery which had threatened to defy solution.
‘Ah yes, Mr. Howard Chesney. Mr. Howard Chesney, to be sure, Mr. Frederick’s friend from America. Are they feeding him, do you know?’
‘Yes, m’lord.’
‘I wouldn’t want him to starve.’
‘No, m’lord.’
‘Is he having his dinner?’
‘Mr. Chesney went to London by the afternoon train, m’lord, planning, I understand, to return tomorrow.’
‘I see. So he’ll probably dine there. At a restaurant or somewhere.’
‘Presumably, m’lord.’
‘The last time I dined in London was with Mr. Galahad at a place in one of those streets off Leicester Square. He said he had a sentimental fondness for it because it was one he had so often been thrown out of in his younger days. It was called something or other, but I forget what. That stuff smells good, Beach. What is it?’
‘Leg of lamb, m’lord, with boiled potatoes.’
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