Oh, hurt me no more, PG

In the interest of gossip,

I know, I really shouldn't

confide that the addressee

of this plea is not that

gracious benefactress of

the page's endless fledge-

lingness. It would be so

much more amusing, very

possibly, if this weren't

so; but in fact I suffer

mortally from humour's aw-

ful torments, much as my

poor parents did, who

might read aloud during

cocktails, from mid-cen-

tury English malefactors

of the pen. So, you know,

whom I mean: the fellow

with whom Duff Cooper and

his boy were trapped in a

lift at the Bristol, soon

after a sad unpleasantness

he'd stirred. But, just

yesterday, foraging for a

lighter text, to charm my

English Cocker on a first

birthday, I ran into an

exchange which must live

in the extremest echelons

of humour's infamy in print.

Dear reader, avert thy gaze;

discard thy shirt, risk not

the hurt of bursting collar

stays.

    You mean Barmy's cousin Egbert from Harrow?

    That's right. The one who shoots Brazil nuts.

    Lord Ickenham was intrigued ..

    Shoots Brazil nuts, does he? You stir me strangely.

    In my time I have shot many things - grouse, pheasants,

    partridges, tigers, gnus and once, when a boy, an aunt

    by marriage in the seat of her sensible tweed dress

    with an airgun - but I have never shot a Brazil nut...

    Not sitting Brazil nuts, I trust?

    It was apparent to the Egg that the old gentleman

    had missed the gist.

    He shoots things with Brazil nuts, he explained.

My very nice little dog, not heretofore known for undue biting of the ankle or hurt-ling into a hearth to chill out against eruptively ex-purgative convulsions from the diaphragm on up, col-lapses from synapses to the toey-tip that tapses, took umbrage also at this waste of scavengeable snackery, for yet another sordid re-port of idle clubmen firing with slingshots at top hats from their windows on the Mall. A truce ceded to him the right to rule on the admissibility of any wit in our relations, in exchange for my not having to share from my libations. I fear condemning laughter to a spontaneous estate, ever an imponderable bliss.

  

P.G. Wodehouse

Cocktail Time

Simon & Schuster, 1958©