The Code of the Woosters

by P.G. Wodehouse

His whole attitude recalled irresistibly to the mind that of some assiduous hound who will persist in laying a dead rat on the

I could see that, if not actually disgruntled, he was far from being gruntled, so I tactfully changed the subject.

I was looking forward with bright anticipation to the coming reunion with this Dahlia—she, as I may have mentioned before, being my good and deserving aunt, not to be confused with Aunt Agatha, who eats broken bottles and wears barbed wire next to the skin.

‘Hullo, ugly,’ she said. ‘What brings you here?’ ‘I understood, aged relative, that you wished to confer with me.’

‘Then carry on. And draw your breath in sharply. Also try clicking the tongue. Oh, yes, and tell them you think it’s Modern Dutch.’ ‘Why?’ ‘I don’t know. Apparently it’s something a cow-creamer ought not to be.’

It was a silver cow. But when I say ‘cow’, don’t go running away with the idea of some decent, self-respecting cudster such as you may observe loading grass into itself in the nearest meadow. This was a sinister, leering, Underworld sort of animal, the kind that would spit out of the side of its mouth for twopence. It was about four inches high and six long. Its back opened on a hinge. Its tail was arched, so that the tip touched the spine—thus, I suppose, affording a handle for the cream-lover to grasp. The sight of it seemed to take me into a different and dreadful world.

‘Macbeth, sir, a character in a play of that name by the late William Shakespeare. He was described as letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”, like the poor cat i’ th’ adage.’