Wordcandy Weekly Book Snippet

Excerpt from:
The World of Jeeves, by P.G. Wodehouse

Why you should buy a copy of your very own:
Because no one on God's green earth does this sort of humor like Wodehouse. And these paragraphs are almost pure description--imagine what the man could do with a little dialogue.

In this scene...
Once again, young Bertie Wooster is about to be imposed upon. This time, it's by Lady Malvern, who has decided that Bertie is the perfect person to look after her son, Motty, for a few weeks.


"Lady Malvern was a hearty, happy, healthy, overpowering sort of dashed female, not so very tall, but making up for it by measuring about six feet from the O.P. to the Prompt Side. She fitted into my biggest arm-chair as if it had been built round her by someone who knew they were wearing arm-chairs tight about the hips that season. She had bright, bulging eyes and a lot of yellow hair, and when she spoke she showed about fifty-seven front teeth. She was one of those women who kind of numb a fellow's faculties. She made me feel as if I were ten years old and had been brought into the drawing-room in my Sunday clothes to say how-d'you-do. Altogether by no means the sort of thing a chappie would wish to find in his sitting room before breakfast.

Motty, the son, was about twenty-three, tall and thin and meek-looking. He had the same yellow hair as his mother, but he wore it plastered down and parted in the middle. His eyes bulged, too, but they weren't bright. They were a dull grey with pink rims. His chin gave up the struggle about half-way down, and he didn't appear to have any eyelashes. A mild, furtive, sheepish sort of blighter, in fact.

'Awfully glad to see you,' I said, though this was far from the case, for already I was beginning to have a sort of feeling that dirty work was threatening in the offing."

(c)P.G. Wodehouse, 1967