July 26 - Mark the Calendar

Mark the Calendar:

1814. Mrs Churchill dies. She had been disliked for at least twenty years.
-- Jane Austen: Emma.

At seven pm Bertie Wooster, Aunt Dahlia, and Cousin Angela arrive at Victoria Station, London, from Cannes.
-- PG Wodehouse: Right Ho, Jeeves

Lucy Westrena has begun sleepwalking.
--Bram Stoker: Dracula.

July 25 - Mark the Calendar

Mark the Calendar:

Bertie Wooster, looking bronzed and fit, accompanies Aunt Dahlia and Cousin Angela back to London from Cannes.
-- PG Wodehouse: Right Ho, Jeeves

The Doctor finds vampires that do not sparkle.
--Toby Whithouse: Doctor Who: The Vampires of Venice.

The Adventures of Sally by P. G. Wodehouse

Page 33:

"Ladies," said Mr. Faucitt, bowing courteously, "and . . ." ceasing to bow and casting from beneath his white and venerable eyebrows a quelling glance at certain male members of the boarding-house's younger set who were showing a disposition towards restiveness, " . . . gentlemen. I feel that I cannot allow this occasion to pass without saying a few words."

His audience did not seem surprised. It was possible that life, always prolific of incident in a great city like New York, might some day produce an occasion which Mr. Faucitt would feel that he could allow to pass without saying a few words; but nothing of the sort had happened as yet, and they had given up hope.

Right Ho, Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Page 45:

 

What with having, on top of her other troubles, to rein herself back from the trough, Aunt Dahlia was a total loss as far as anything in the shape of brilliant badinage was concerned. The fact that he was fifty quid in the red and expecting Civilisation to take a toss at any moment had caused Uncle Tom, who always looked a bit like a pterodactyl with a secret sorrow, to take on a deeper melancholy. The Bassett was a silent bread crumbler. Angela might have been hewn from the living rock. Tuppy had the air of a condemned murderer refusing to make the usual hearty breakfast before tooling off to the execution shed.

And as for Gussie Fink-Nottle, many an experienced undertaker would have been deceived by his appearance and started embalming him on sight.

 

 

Right Ho, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse

Opening lines:

"Jeeves," I said, "may I speak frankly?"

"Certainly, sir."

"What I have to say may wound you."

"Not at all, sir."

"Well, then----"

No--wait. Hold the line a minute. I've gone off the rails.

I don't know if you have had the same experience, but the snag I always come up against when I'm telling a story is this dashed difficult problem of where to begin it. It's a thing you don't want to go wrong over, because one false step and you're sunk. I mean, if you fool about too long at the start, trying to establish atmosphere, as they call it, and all that sort of rot, you fail to grip and the customers walk out on you.

My Man Jeeves by P G Wodehouse

Opening lines:

Jeeves -- my man, you know -- is really a most extraordinary chap. So capable. Honestly, I shouldn't know what to do without him. On broader lines he's like those chappies who sit peering sadly over the marble battlements at the Pennsylvania Station in the place marked "Inquiries." You know the Johnnies I mean. You go up to them and say: "When's the next train for Melonsquashville, Tennessee?" and they reply, without stopping to think, "Two-forty-three, track ten, change at San Francisco." And they're right every time. Well, Jeeves gives you just the same impression of omniscience.