“A lesser moustache, under the impact of that quick, agonised expulsion of breath, would have worked loose at the roots.”

“Never mind," I said crisply. "I have my methods." I dug out my entire stock of manly courage, breathed a short prayer and let her have it right in the thorax.”

“He will lunch with you at your flat tomorrow at one-thirty. Please remember that he drinks no wine, strongly disapproves of smoking, and can only eat the simplest food, owing to an impaired digestion. Do not offer him coffee, for he considers it the root of half the nerve-trouble in the world.""I should think a dog-biscuit and a glass of water would about meet the case, what?""Bertie!""Oh, all right. Merely persiflage.""Now it is precisely that sort of idiotic remark that would be calculated to arouse Sir Roderick's worst suspicions.”

“I say, you don't know how I could raise fifty quid somehow, do you?""Why don't you work?""Work?" said young Bingo, surprised. "What, me? No, I shall have to think of some way.”

“You agreee with me that the situation is a lulu? Certainly, a somewhat sharp crisis in your affairs would appear to have been precipitated, Sir.”

“One of the advantages a sister has when arguing with a brother is that she is under no obligation to be tactful. If she wishes to tell him that he is an idiot and ought to have his head examined, she can do so and, going further, can add that it is a thousand pities that no-one ever thought of smothering him with a pillow in his formative years.”

“A certain critic -- for such men, I regret to say, do exist -- made the nasty remark about my last novel that it contained 'all the old Wodehouse characters under different names.' He has probably by now been eaten by bears, like the children who made mock of the prophet Elisha: but if he still survives he will not be able to make a similar charge against Summer Lightning. With my superior intelligence, I have out-generalled the man this time by putting in all the old Wodehouse characters under the same names. Pretty silly it will make him feel, I rather fancy.”