Jeeves in the Offing by PG Wodehouse

 “Jeeves in the Offing” – a hilarious masterpiece by PG Wodehouse:  15 hilarious quotations and 8 examples of peculiar Wodehouse vocabulary. 

“Jeeves in the Offing” – a late masterpiece

Jeeves in the Offing is an exquisite contribution to the Wodehouse canon and a reminder that the master’s skills never faded in an extraordinary 72 years of novel-writing.

The front and back cover of my Folio Society edition of “Jeeves in the Offing”: Jeeves waits, reading Spinoza, outside the Fox & Goose, while Bertie, within, meets Bobbie Wickham

Chaos at Brinkley Court

“Jeeves in the Offing” features a fantastically febrile mood at Brinkley Court, as Sir Roderick Glossop, brain specialist and “eminent loony-doctor”, appears as a fake butler named, at Roberta (“Bobbie”) Wickham’s whim, “Swordfish”.  The bubbling Bobbie herself, notable for her espieglerie, is wondrous to behold.

In fact, Jeeves in the Offing is notable for having an above-average quota of obscure Wodehousian vocabulary – see the end of this blog.

Jeeves in the Offing: 15 favourite quotes

So, without further ado, here are fifteen favourite quotes I have noted from my pleasurable journey through this rather wizard masterpiece:

• I mean to say, when a girl, offered a good man’s heart, laughs like a bursting paper bag and tells him not to be a silly ass, the good man is entitled, I think, to assume that the whole thing is off.
• He would, in short, have been an unsafe entrant to have backed in a beauty contest, even if the only other competitors had been Boris Karloff, King Kong and Oofy Prosser of the Drones.
• One had to remember that most of the bimbos to whom Roberta Wickham had been giving the bird through the years had been of the huntin’, shootin’ and fishin’ type, fellows who had more or less shot their bolt after saying ‘Eh, what?’ and slapping their leg with a hunting crop.  Kipper must have come as a nice change.
• I eyed her sternly. Bertram Wooster has no objection to listening to drivel, but it must not be pure babble from the padded cell, as this appeared to be.
• When she spoke, it was with the mildness of a cushat dove addressing another cushat dove from whom it was hoping to borrow money.
• It just showed once again that half the world doesn’t know how the other three-quarters lives.
• ‘Apart from wishing I could throttle the young twister with my bare hands and jump on the remains with hobnailed boots, I don’t feel much about her one way or the other.’
• [Speaking of Anatole, Aunt Dahlia’s famed French cook] ‘There is none like him, none,’ said Kipper, moistening the lips with the tip of the tongue and looking like a wolf that has just spotted its Russian peasant. ‘He stands alone.’
• He bowed from the waist, not that he had much waist.
• ‘She must have driven like an inebriated racing motorist.’
• The moment had come for the honeyed word.  I lowered my voice to a confidential murmur, but on her enquiring if I had laryngitis raised it again.
• ‘Where I went wrong,’ he said, still speaking in that low, husky voice as if he had been a ghost suffering from cararrh, ‘was in getting engaged to Phyllis Mills.’
• [Of Phyllis Mills] …though shaky on the IQ, physically she was a pipterino of the first water.  Her eyes were considerably bluer than the skies above, she was wearing a simple summer dress which accentuated rather than hid the graceful outlines of her figure, if you know what I mean, and it was not surprising that Wilbert Cream, seeing her, should have lost no time in reaching for the book of poetry and making a beeline with her to the nearest leafy glade.
• I have mentioned before that Bertram Wooster, chilled steel when dealing with the sterner sex, is always wax in a woman’s hands, and the present case was no exception to the r.

A puzzling quote

I was puzzled by the following quote.  All help welcome!

• ‘The male sex is divided into rabbits and non-rabbits and the female sex into dashers and dormice, and the trouble is that the male rabbit has a way of getting attracted by the female dasher (who would be fine for the male non-rabbit) and realising too late that he ought to have been concentrating on some mild, gentle dormouse with whom he could settle down peacefully and nibble lettuce.’

Jeeves in the Offing: eclectic vocabulary

I mentioned the concentration of rare words in Jeeves in the Offing.  I noted:

• parasang (‘You don’t get the subtle strategy?’ ‘Not by several parasangs.’).  This is described by Wikipedia as “a historical Iranian unit of itinerant distance”;
• welkin (They had scarcely swum into my ken when the welkin started ringing like billy-o).  I find references to “making the welkin ring” meaning “to make a loud sound”, but none to this usage;
• most baffling, guffin and gaby: ‘”Cannot understand how you can be contemplating marrying that guffin.” Close quote.  I suppose it’s more or less the same as a gaby, which was how you figured in one of her earlier communications.’  This seems a Wodehouse special.  The story “Archibald” also has the line: “Behind his back she not infrequently referred to him as a ‘gaby’; sometimes even as that ‘guffin’.  Collins defines “gaby” as a simpleton. But I have found no definition of a guffin.  Wodehouse’s own “Love among the Chickens, though, features a debate on what a guffin is. It concludes that it is one who guffs;
• espieglerie – also featuring in several Wodehouse stories, meaning playful, impish behaviour;
• alienist (referring to Sir Roderick Glossop), an archaic term for a psychiatrist or psychologist;
• aurist, meaning a specialist in the treatment of ear diseases; and, finally,
• keg of nails: I returned to the metropolis and was having the pre-dinner keg of nails in the smoking room.  This is again a specialised usage. The closest I came was “To open a keg of nails”. It means to have a strong alcoholic drink, or get the party started.

What to do next

What next?  If you are a Wodehouse fan, see the “PG Wodehouse” tab under “Categories“.  You can also check out my own comic writing, including Seven Hotel Stories.  Enjoy!