Must have risen before the crack of noon yesterday, or been suffering from an insufficiency of the b and e, for today I find the scene we've been looking for staring me in the f! Chapter two, of "Right Ho Jeeves," p. 30 in the German edition. Jeeves has proposed that Gussie, who wishes to woo the Bassett girl--she who believes the stars to be God's daisy chain and who is inordinately fond of "bunnies"-- should attend a fancy dress ball in the guise of Mephistopeles. Bertie wants to know what's wrong with a good old Pierrot?
Jeeves has told Gussie that psychology is important to the wheeze. Gussie, amateur student of Nature, thinks this sound, "In a striking costume like Mephistopheles, I might quite easily pull off something quite impressive. Colour does make a difference. Look at newts. During the courting season the male newt is brilliantly coloured. It helps him a lot."
Bertie indicates a flaw in Gussie's analogy, "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."
Bertie, Sunday logician, comes back with, "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."Bertie registers a "slight throbbing about the temples," perseveres: "Well anyway," I said, "coming down to hard facts and cutting out all this visionary stuff about vibrating tails and what-not, the salient point that emerges is that you are booked to appear at a fancy-dress ball. And I tell you out of my riper knowledge of fancy-dress balls, Gussie, that you won't enjoy yourself."
Gussie, one-time left back (in the clubhouse) of Seneca Wonderers, counters, "It isn't a question of enjoying yourself."
David Ritchie, of the slightly-moribund Wodehouse Society, Portland, Oregon ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
