A Wodehouse Bestiary: Vintage Animal Tales from the World-Renowned Humorist

First Mariner Books edition 1999

Preface copyright © 1985 by D. R. Bensen

Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court and Something Squishy

were originally collected in Mr. Mulliner Speaking, copyright 1925,

1926, 1927, 1928 and 1929 by P. G. Wodehouse; renewed 1953, 1954,

1955, 1956 and 1957.

Pig-Hoo-o-o-o-ey!, Monkey Business and The Go-Getter

were originally collected in Blandings Castle, copyright 1924, 1926,

1927, 1928, 1932, 1933, 1935 by P. G. Wodehouse; renewed 1952, 1954,

1955, 1956, 1960, 1961 and 1963.

Sir Roderick Comes to Lunch and Comrade Bingo were first

collected in Jeeves, copyright 1923 by George H. Doran Company;

renewed 1951 by P. G. Wodehouse.

Jeeves and the Impending Doom and "Jeeves and the Old School

Chum" were first collected in Very Good, Jeepes!, copyright 1926, 1927,

1929, 1930 by P. G. Wodehouse; renewed 1954, 1955, 1957 and 1958.

Open House and The Story of Webster were first collected in

Mulliner Nights, copyright 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933 by P. G. Wodehouse;

renewed 1958, 1959, 1960 and 1961.

Ukridge's Dog College was originally collected in He Rather

Enjoyed It, copyright 1923 by International Magazine Company, Inc.;

copyright 1925 by George H. Doran Company; renewed 1951, 1953 by

P. G. Wodehouse.

Uncle Fred Flits By was first collected in Young Men in Spats,

copyright 1931, 1933, 1934, 1935 and 1936 by P. G. Wodehouse; renewed

1959, 1961, 1962, 1963 and 1964.

The Mixer was first collected in The Man with Turn Left Feet, copy-

right 1917 by P. G. Wodehouse; renewed 1945.

All rights reserved

For information about permission to reproduce selections from

this book, write to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company,

215 Park Avenue South, New York, New York 10003.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881–1975.

A Wodehouse bestiary.

1. Animals—Fiction. 2. Pekingese spaniels—Fiction.

I. Bensen, D. R. (Donald R.), date. II. Title.

PR6045.O53A6 1985 823'.912 85-7999

ISBN 0-618-00186-7 (pbk.)

Printed in the United States of America

QUM 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Foreword

Fans already familiar with Wodehouse the Connoisseur of Country Houses or Wodehouse the Golfing Enthusiast have a real and unexpected treat in store for them in this remarkable anthology, which highlights a previously overlooked Wodehouse—the Keen Animal Observer, a Wodehouse worthy of a special place of honor. Since the collection contains some of his very best stories, it will also serve as a delightful introduction to his complete oeuvre as well as to his natural history.

The P. G. Wodehouse Shelter of the Bide-a-Wee Home Association in Westhampton, Long Island, was quite appropriately named to honor his warm-hearted generosity toward his dumb chums. While, of course, the shelter housed dogs and cats and not the giraffes or rhinos that live some two hours away at the Bronx Zoo, our author's interests include many wild as well as tame animals, judging by the frequent mention of well- and lesser-known fauna. Unfortunately he is sometimes unspecific, referring only to a snake or a parrot, and is frequently guilty of adopting a stereotyped view of snakes, parrots, rabbits, and rats. It is clear that he knows better, for in Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court he rattles off the names and habits of big game, and incidentally shows more sympathy toward the viewpoint of trophy hunters wise in animal lore than toward the saccharine opinions of the uninformed. His writings show that he understands both why zoo animals appeal to all types and ages and why millions are spent on advertising pet food.

Anyone who has been a student of animals or has lived in the country will recognize the precision and profundity of some of the zoological observations scattered throughout the Master's work. No ornithologist has transcribed more accurately the warning hiss of a large, white, active, and short-tempered swan like a tire bursting in a nest of cobras, or ever before saw fit to ask, Have you ever noticed how a swan's eyebrows sort of meet in the middle? Wodehouse appears to be very sound in his observations on the prudent opossum, while shy naturalists, comfortable only when they can share their deepest interests, can understand perfectly why Gussie, terrified by the arrival of the mood, the moonlight and the expectant Madeline all together, started talking about newts.

Considering that it was written long before the publication of Dr. George B. Schaller's authoritative study on the mountain gorilla, Wodehouse's sketch of a gorilla personality is a model of verisimilitude, and it is a constant pleasure to find him tossing off lines that deepen our appreciation of the kinship between man and nature, such as, The magistrate looked like an owl with a dash of weasel blood in him.

Then, too, one of the most memorable animals in literature is the Berkshire sow, Empress of Blandings. The passionate care that is lavished upon her should be an example to every zoo's curatorial staff.

Besides pigs, a high proportion of the creatures in these stories are domesticated; not surprising considering the urban and bucolic scenes where the action takes place. Wodehouse himself enjoyed pets and was generally surrounded by his beloved Pekes, shepherds, boxers, dachshunds, and by his cats. Cats are not dogs is only one of the many thoughtful comments you will find in this book.

His pre—World War II tale Open House is concerned, at least in part, with a Peke named Reginald. The British six-month quarantine is a fact bearing some importance on the shape of the plot. Ironically, years later, that same quarantine, threatening to separate Wodehouse from his Peke, Wonder, caused him to delay his departure from France across the channel despite clear warnings he had received, until it was too late and he was caught by the German occupation.

I believe that Wodehouse, by helping to develop a vast and happy audience sympathetic to the most bizarre patterns of behavior, animal and human, and by encouraging a relish for the variety of life on earth, has contributed toward the goal of today's zoos, which is to preserve nature's diversity for coming generations.

Howard Phipps, Jr.

President, New York Zoological Society

Preface

The first time I met P. G. Wodehouse, he was substantially more occupied with a dachshund called Jed than with a visiting editor and publisher. As Wodehouse's attentions involved holding Jed rather as if the dog were a bolster and pulling gently at his ears, I was content to allow the animal primacy.

This Jed was, in dog years, somewhat Wodehouse's senior (98 to 80), though he had not written as many books; they were clearly close companions in spite of the disparities in age, achievement and background. All the same, dachshunds were not Wodehouse's prime enthusiasm. For him, the canine acme was the Peke. Particularly in his middle years, he seemed to wade in a sea of Pekingese; they occupy long stretches of his letters and appear in family photographs as full equals; their health and exploits are at least as constant concerns as how the new novel is going or what the tax authorities are up to. Howard Phipps has recalled in the Foreword how the conflict of the British quarantine regulations and Wodehouse's commitment to his Peke Wonder led to his being scooped up and interned by the German army in 1940. This is sometimes criticized as frivolously unforesighted, but Wodehouse shared this lack of prescience with most of the military and political leaders of Britain and France—Belgium, Holland, Norway, and Denmark as well, for that matter.

It will be no surprise, then, that Pekes predominate in this assembly of animal tales—no fewer than nine, six of whom appear in one story. There is nothing that can, or even should, be done about that; if you want to do business with Wodehouse, the Pekes follow inevitably. Relax and enjoy them.

There is of course more to life, and fiction, than Pekes. We can also offer a brace of versatile mongrels, Beefy Bingham's stout-hearted Bottles and the nameless Mixer—Wodehouse's only canine narrator—and major and minor cat characters, including Webster, whose ecclesiastical dignity was shattered when he proved to have paws of clay.

The menagerie also contains one each parrot, snake, swan, rabbit (dead), gorilla (fake), canary, gnu, and pig, and some racehorses, a heady enough variety to satisfy all but the most demanding zoophile. True, such a selection may seem tame to those who look for peril in their animal stories, but in quite a few of these accounts, if Nature isn't red in tooth and claw, it's only because of quick thinking and determined timidity on the part of the human protagonists. Given full scope, that swan would have terminated Bertie Wooster's non-career long before its time. And, offered the choice, would not Eustace Mulliner have preferred to face a ravening tiger than the combined wrath of the Pekelorn Marcella Tyrrhwhitt, the canary-defending Orlando Wotherspoon, and his Aunt Georgiana, whose cat he had just kicked? You bet he would.

In a curious way, this is not the first Wodehouse bestiary, at least not the first bestiary to contain Wodehouses. Many medieval treatises contained accounts, sometimes illustrated, of wild men of the woods, variously called wudewasa or wode-houses. These could be distinguished from great apes chiefly by the large size of the feet and the elongated big toe. Wodehouse, I believe, took a size 9, often preferring tennis shoes.

D. R. Bensen

Croton-on-Hudson

Unpleasantness at Bludleigh Court

THE POET who was spending the summer at the Anglers' Rest had just begun to read us his new sonnet sequence when the door of the bar-parlor opened and there entered a young man in gaiters. He came quickly in and ordered beer. In one hand he was carrying a double-barreled gun, in the other a posy of dead rabbits. These he dropped squashily to the floor, and the poet, stopping in midsentence, took one long, earnest look at the remains. Then, wincing painfully, he turned a light green and closed his eyes. It was not until the banging of the door announced the visitor's departure that he came to life again.

Mr. Mulliner regarded him sympathetically over his hot Scotch and lemon.

You appear upset, he said.

A little, admitted the poet. A momentary malaise. It may be purely personal prejudice, but I confess to preferring rabbits with rather more of their contents inside them.

Many sensitive souls in your line of business hold similar views, Mr. Mulliner assured him. My niece Charlotte did.

It is my temperament, said the poet. I dislike all dead things—particularly when, as in the case of the above rabbits, they have so obviously, so—shall I say?—blatantly made the Great Change. Give me, he went on, the greenish tinge fading from his face, life and joy and beauty.

Just what my niece Charlotte used to say.

Oddly enough, that thought forms the theme of the second sonnet in my sequence—which, now that the young gentleman with the portable Morgue has left us, I will...

My niece Charlotte, said Mr. Mulliner, with quiet firmness, was one of those gentle, dreamy, wistful girls who take what I have sometimes felt to be a mean advantage of having an ample private income to write Vignettes in Verse for the artistic weeklies. Charlotte's Vignettes in Verse had a wide vogue among the editors of London's higher-browed but less prosperous periodicals. Directly these frugal men realized that she was willing to supply unstinted vignettes gratis, for the mere pleasure of seeing herself in print, they were all over her. The consequence was that before long she had begun to move freely in the most refined literary circles, and one day, at a little luncheon at the Crushed Pansy (the Restaurant with a Soul), she found herself seated next to a godlike young man, at the sight of whom something seemed to go off inside her like a spring.

Talking of spring... said the poet.

Cupid, proceeded Mr. Mulliner, has always found the family to which I belong a ready mark for his bow. Our hearts are warm, our passions quick. It is not too much to say that my niece Charlotte was in love with this young man before she had finished spearing the first anchovy out of the hors d'oeuvres dish. He was intensely spiritual-looking, with a broad, white forehead and eyes that seemed to Charlotte not so much eyes as a couple of holes punched in the surface of a beautiful soul. He wrote, she learned, Pastels in Prose, and his name, if she had caught it correctly at the moment of their introduction, was Aubrey Trefusis.

Friendship ripens quickly at the Crushed Pansy (said Mr. Mulliner). The poulet rôti au cresson had scarcely been distributed before the young man was telling Charlotte his hopes, his fears, and the story of his boyhood. And she was amazed to find that he sprang—not from a long line of artists but from an ordinary, conventional county family of the type that cares for nothing except hunting and shooting.

You can readily imagine, he said, helping her to Brussels sprouts, "how intensely such an environment jarred upon my unfolding spirit. My family are greatly respected in the neighborhood, but I personally have always looked upon them as a gang of blood-imbrued plug-uglies. My views on kindness to animals are rigid. My impulse, on encountering a rabbit, is to offer it lettuce. To my family, on the other hand, a rabbit seems incomplete without a deposit of small shot in it. My father, I believe, has cut off more assorted birds in their prime than any other man in the Midlands. A whole morning was spoiled for me last week by the sight of a photograph of him in the Tatler, looking rather severely at a dying duck. My elder brother Reginald spreads destruction in every branch of the animal kingdom. And my younger brother Wilfred is, I understand, working his way up to the larger fauna by killing sparrows with an air-gun. Spiritually, one might just as well live in Chicago as at Bludleigh Court."

Bludleigh Court? cried Charlotte.

The moment I was twenty-one and came into a modest but sufficient inheritance, I left the place and went to London to lead the life literary. The family, of course, were appalled. My Uncle Francis, I remember, tried to reason with me for hours. Uncle Francis, you see, used to be a famous big-game hunter. They tell me he has shot more gnus than any other man who ever went to Africa. In fact, until recently he virtually never stopped shooting gnus. Now, I hear, he has developed lumbago and is down at Bludleigh treating it with Riggs's Superfine Emulsion and sun-baths.

But is Bludleigh Court your home?

That's right. Bludleigh Court, Lesser Bludleigh, near Goresby-on-the-Ouse, Bedfordshire.

But Bludleigh Court belongs to Sir Alexander Bassinger.

My name is really Bassinger. I adopted the pen-name of Trefusis to spare the family's feelings. But how do you come to know of the place?

I'm going down there next week for a visit. My mother was an old friend of Lady Bassinger.

Aubrey was astonished. And, being, like all writers of Pastels in Prose, a neat phrasemaker, he said what a small world it was, after all.

Well, well, well! he said.

From what you tell me, said Charlotte, I'm afraid I shall not enjoy my visit. If there's one thing I loathe, it's anything connected with sport.

Two minds with but a single thought, said Aubrey. Look here, I'll tell you what. I haven't been near Bludleigh for years, but if you're going there, why, dash it, I'll come too—aye, even though it means meeting my Uncle Francis.

You will?

I certainly will. I don't consider it safe that a girl of your exquisite refinement and sensibility should be dumped down at an abattoir like Bludleigh Court without a kindred spirit to lend her moral stability.

What do you mean?

I'll tell you. His voice was grave. That house exercises a spell.

A what?

A spell. A ghastly spell that saps the strongest humanitarian principles. Who knows what effect it might have upon you, should you go there without someone like me to stand by you and guide you in your hour of need?

What nonsense!

Well, all I can tell you is that once, when I was a boy, a high official of Our Dumb Brothers' League of Mercy arrived there lateish on a Friday night, and at two-fifteen on the Saturday afternoon he was the life and soul of an informal party got up for the purpose of drawing one of the local badgers out of an upturned barrel.

Charlotte laughed merrily.

The spell will not affect me, she said.

Nor me, of course, said Aubrey. But all the same, I would prefer to be by your side, if you don't mind.

Mind, Mr. Bassinger! breathed Charlotte softly, and was thrilled to note that at the words and the look with which she accompanied them this man to whom—for, as I say, we Mulliners are quick workers—she had already given her heart, quivered violently. It seemed to her that in those soulful eyes of his she had seen the love-light.

Bludleigh Court, when Charlotte reached it some days later, proved to be a noble old pile of Tudor architecture, situated in rolling parkland and flanked by pleasant gardens leading to a lake with a tree-fringed boathouse. Inside, it was comfortably furnished and decorated throughout with groves of glass cases containing the goggle-eyed remnants of birds and beasts assassinated at one time or another by Sir Alexander Bassinger and his son Reginald. From every wall there peered down with an air of mild reproach selected portions of the gnus, moose, elks, zebus, antelopes, giraffes, mountain goats and wapiti which had had the misfortune to meet Colonel Sir Francis Pashley-Drake before lumbago spoiled him for the chase. The cemetery also included a few stuffed sparrows, which showed that little Wilfred was doing his bit.

The first two days of her visit Charlotte passed mostly in the society of Colonel Pashley-Drake, the Uncle Francis to whom Aubrey had alluded. He seemed to have taken a paternal fancy to her: and, lithely though she dodged down back-stairs and passages, she generally found him breathing heavily at her side. He was a red-faced, almost circular man, with eyes like a prawn's, and he spoke to her freely of lumbago, gnus and Aubrey.

So you're a friend of my nephew? he said, snorting twice in a rather unpleasant manner. It was plain that he disapproved of the pastel-artist. Shouldn't see too much of him, if I were you. Not the sort of fellow I'd like any daughter of mine to get friendly with.

You are quite wrong, said Charlotte warmly. You have only to gaze into Mr. Bassinger's eyes to see that his morals are above reproach.

I never gaze into his eyes, replied Colonel Pashley-Drake. Don't like his eyes. Wouldn't gaze into them if you paid me. I maintain his whole outlook on life is morbid and unwholesome. I like a man to be a clean, strong, upstanding Englishman who can look his gnu in the face and put an ounce of lead in it.

Life, said Charlotte coldly, is not all gnus.

You imply that there are also wapiti, moose, zebus and mountain-goats? said Sir Francis. Well, maybe you're right. All the same, I'd give the fellow a wide berth, if I were you.

So far from doing so, replied Charlotte proudly, I am about to go for a stroll with him by the lake at this very moment.

And, turning away with a petulant toss of her head, she moved off to meet Aubrey, who was hurrying towards her across the terrace.

I am so glad you came, Mr. Bassinger, she said to him as they walked together in the direction of the lake. I was beginning to find your Uncle Francis a little excessive.

Aubrey nodded sympathetically. He had observed her in conversation with his relative and his heart had gone out to her.

Two minutes of my Uncle Francis, he said, is considered by the best judges a good medium dose for an adult. So you find him trying, eh? I was wondering what impression my family had made on you.

Charlotte was silent for a moment.

How relative everything is in this world, she said pensively. When I first met your father, I thought I had never seen anybody more completely loathsome. Then I was introduced to your brother Reginald, and I realized that, after all, your father might have been considerably worse. And, just as I was thinking that Reginald was the furthest point possible, along came your Uncle Francis, and Reginald's quiet charm seemed to leap out at me like a beacon on a dark night. Tell me, she said, has no one ever thought of doing anything about your Uncle Francis?

Aubrey shook his head gently.

It is pretty generally recognized now that he is beyond the reach of human science. The only thing to do seems to be to let him go on till he eventually runs down.

They sat together on a rustic bench overlooking the water. It was a lovely morning. The sun shone on the little wavelets which the sighing breeze drove gently to the shore. A dreamy stillness had fallen on the world, broken only by the distant sound of Sir Alexander Bassinger murdering magpies, of Reginald Bassinger encouraging dogs to eviscerate a rabbit, of Wilfred busy among the sparrows, and a monotonous droning noise from the upper terrace, which was Colonel Sir Francis Pashley-Drake telling Lady Bassinger what to do with the dead gnu.

Aubrey was the first to break the silence.

How lovely the world is, Miss Mulliner.

Yes, isn't it!

How softly the breeze caresses yonder water.

Yes, doesn't it!

How fragrant a scent of wildflowers it has.

Yes, hasn't it!

They were silent again.

On such a day, said Aubrey, the mind seems to turn irresistibly to Love.

Love? said Charlotte, her heart beginning to flutter.

Love, said Aubrey. Tell me, Miss Mulliner, have you ever thought of Love?

He took her hand. Her head was bent, and with the toe of her dainty shoe she toyed with a passing snail.

Life, Miss Mulliner, said Aubrey, is a Sahara through which we all must pass. We start at the Cairo of the cradle and we travel on to the—er—well, we go traveling on.

Yes, don't we! said Charlotte.

Afar we can see the distant goal...

Yes, can't we!

...and would fain reach it.

Yes, wouldn't we!

But the way is rough and weary. We have to battle through the sand-storms of Destiny, face with what courage we may the howling simoons of Fate. And very unpleasant it all is. But sometimes in the Sahara of Life, if we are fortunate, we come upon the Oasis of Love. That oasis, when I had all but lost hope, I reached at one-fifteen on the afternoon of Tuesday, the twenty-second of last month. There comes a time in the life of every man when he sees Happiness beckoning to him and must grasp it. Miss Mulliner, I have something to ask you which I have been trying to ask ever since the day when we two first met. Miss Mulliner ... Charlotte ... Will you be my ... Gosh! Look at that whacking great rat! Loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo-loo! said Aubrey, changing the subject.

Once, in her childhood, a sportive playmate had secretly withdrawn the chair on which Charlotte Mulliner was preparing to seat herself. Years had passed, but the recollection of the incident remained green in her memory. In frosty weather she could still feel the old wound. And now, as Aubrey Bassinger suddenly behaved in this remarkable manner, she experienced the same sensation again. It was as though something blunt and heavy had hit her on the head at the exact moment when she was slipping on a banana-skin.

She stared round-eyed at Aubrey. He had released her hand, sprung to his feet, and now, armed with her parasol, was beating furiously in the lush grass at the waterside. And every little while his mouth would open, his head would go back, and uncouth sounds would proceed from his slavering jaws.

Yoicks! Yoicks! Yoicks! cried Aubrey.

And again,

Tally-ho! Hard For'ard! Tally-ho!

Presently the fever seemed to pass. He straightened himself and came back to where she stood.

It must have got away into a hole or something, he said, removing a bead of perspiration from his forehead with the ferrule of the parasol. The fact of the matter is, it's silly ever to go out in the country without a good dog. If only I'd had a nice, nippy terrier with me, I might have obtained some solid results. As it is, a fine rat—gone—just like that! Oh, well, that's Life, I suppose. He paused. Let me see, he said. Where was I?

And then it was as though he waked from a trance. His flushed face paled.

I say, he stammered, I'm afraid you must think me most awfully rude.

Pray do not mention it, said Charlotte coldly.

Oh, but you must. Dashing off like that.

Not at all.

What I was going to say, when I was interrupted, was, will you be my wife?

Oh?

Yes.

Well, I won't.

You won't?

No. Never. Charlotte's voice was tense with a scorn which she did not attempt to conceal. So this is what you were all the time, Mr. Bassinger—a secret sportsman!

Aubrey quivered from head to foot.

I'm not! I'm not! It was the hideous spell of this Ghastly house that overcame me.

Pah!

What did you say?

I said 'Pah'?

Why did you say, 'Pah'?

Because, said Charlotte, with flashing eyes, I do not believe you. Your story is thin and fishy.

But it's the truth. It was as if some hypnotic influence had gripped me, forcing me to act against all my higher inclinations. Can't you understand? Would you condemn me for a moment's passing weakness? Do you think, he cried passionately, that the real Aubrey Bassinger would raise a hand to touch a rat, save in the way of kindness? I love rats, I tell you—love them. I used to keep them as a boy. White ones with pink eyes.

Charlotte shook her head. Her face was cold and hard.

Good-bye, Mr. Bassinger, she said. From this instant we meet as strangers.

She turned and was gone. And Aubrey Bassinger, covering his face with his hands, sank on the bench, feeling like a sandbagged leper.

The mind of Charlotte Mulliner, in the days which followed the painful scene which I have just described, was torn, as you may well imagine, with conflicting emotions. For a time, as was natural, anger predominated. But after a while sadness overcame indignation. She mourned for her lost happiness.

And yet, she asked herself, how else could she have acted? She had worshiped Aubrey Bassinger. She had set him upon a pedestal, looked up to him as a great white soul. She had supposed him one who lived, far above this world's coarseness and grime, on a rarefied plane of his own, thinking beautiful thoughts. Instead of which, it now appeared, he went about the place chasing rats with parasols.

That there lurked in the atmosphere of Bludleigh Court a sinister influence that sapped the principles of the most humanitarian and sent them ravening to and fro, seeking for prey, she declined to believe. The theory was pure banana-oil. If such an influence was in operation at Bludleigh, why had it not affected her?

No, if Aubrey Bassinger chased rats with parasols, it could only mean that he was one of Nature's rat-chasers. And to such a one, cost what it might to refuse, she could never confide her heart.

Few things are more embarrassing to a highly-strung girl than to be for any length of time in the same house with a man whose love she has been compelled to decline, and Charlotte would have given much to be able to leave Bludleigh Court. But there was, it seemed, to be