Jeeves/Wooster Dictionary Fraglets: 5-6/20
Er, I think I'll just hand these over without further commentary. *flees*
Previous efforts || Table of doom
5. In which we mangle a spot of Byron and have an ouchy sort of misunderstanding (sort of):
~1000 words, rated PG with apologies to Lord B.
Octosyllabic
6. In which the author takes the prompt quite literally and attempts to make up for having hurt your feelings:
~700 words, rated R for implied bedroom hijinks and SC for slight crack.
( Attire )
Octosyllabic
All I can offer in my own defence is that I was fried to the tonsils at the time and not thinking clearly. It was during one of those interminable periods of purgatory-- or perhaps it's limbo-- more commonly known as Jeeves's annual holiday. I always make my best go at bearing up admirably under these circs, but I've never lasted even close to the full fortnight without finding myself a mere shadow of what was and pining for the good old days.
On this particular occasion, said pining had led to rather a drowning of sorrows alongside several sympathetic pals at the Drones and continued long after I'd been poured into a cab and rowed homewards. It speaks rather strongly to my sorry state that I suddenly found myself thinking of some bit of something I'd read that reminded me quite keenly of the absent Jeeves. Without him there to give advice, of course, I made rather a disaster zone of the bookcases before I found it.
Well, I'd nearly found it. It was just about perfect, this bit of verse, except that it was about a girl. As topping a lass as Byron had ever known, I'm sure, but it wouldn't do. The slightly-soaked brain muscle was struck by the inspiration to remedy the oversight, so I hunted up pen and paper and got to remedying. My version of the thing ran thus:
He walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in his aspect and his eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er his face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,--
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
Admittedly, it was just the same but for the odd he or his bunged in where a she or her had been, and some of it was a bit flowery for my taste, but the bits about eloquent brows and grace were just the stuff for the troops, and on reading it over once or twice with the image of floaty females expunged, I felt not quite so terribly alone for a few moments.
At some wee hour I came back to my senses and shoved the thing between the book's pages. The substitute valet (a pale imitation) Jeeves had engaged for the duration cleared the books up on the 'morrow, and I rather forgot all about it.
I forgot so completely, in fact, that when some months later Jeeves asked to borrow the volume in q. I thought nothing of it and airily told him to have at it.
It was only when he presented me with the scrawled-over stationery that Bertram was cast deeply into a new and unique brand of soup.
"I wondered if you wished to keep this, sir," he said with as rum a look as I've ever seen on him, holding the page by its corner as though it were soaked in acid or had little horseshoes printed on it.
The events of the night I'd copied it down came hazily back to me. "No, I don't suppose I need it now," I said. After all, I had no need for imaginary Jeeveses with the real thing front and centre, and it hadn't done much for me anyway.
He made a sort of 'hm' noise and seemed to chew over what he was about to say before he said it. What he said at last was, "If I may make an observation, sir?"
"Observe away, Jeeves," said I.
"You have transcribed Lord Byron's poem with masculine pronouns, sir. Perhaps you misread it?"
"No, it was on purpose," I said with a wave of the hand. "You were off on your holiday, you know, and it sort of reminded me of you but for the female object, so I changed it a bit."
His whole whatsit changed. Countenance, mien, expression-- whatever it was, it altered like I'd never seen it alter, not dissimilar to Zeus or whoever it was getting himself up as a swan. "Sir," he said, and to my surprise was suddenly very, very close to me and conducting a distinct wrapping-round of arms. "I often wondered, but I never dared hope...."
What was about to be a 'steady on, Jeeves,' or similar exclamation-- for there are liberties and then there are liberties-- died on my lips, as said lips were covered by other lips. Jeeves's, to be precise. The Wooster bean is not ordinarily up to quick thinking, but as the fellow I tend to leave the quick thinking to was the one causing the need for it, it managed to come up with the goods. Jeeves had misunderstood me so utterly it was nearly laughable, but I doubted he'd want to be laughed at just now. While I'd been thinking of gliding walks and serene thoughts, of domestic harmony and everything just so, he'd concentrated on the loving hearts and sweet dearness, and had apparently been hoping for some declaration of this s. d. from me for some time.
Well, I mean to say, what? What could I do? If I stopped him and set the facts straight, he'd no doubt be ten streets away before I'd finished getting the words out. I'd been poised to marry the likes of Glossops and Bassetts for smaller cases of mal-compris. And for heaven's sake, this was Jeeves. I was already signed up for life, and happily so, which was more than I could say for any past applicants. The same went for the kissing business. It wasn't one of these sloppy affairs with squashed noses and bumping teeth, and he was warm and it was nice and I found it all a bit stirring quite despite myself.
If he loved me, if this wondrous marvel actually for some mysterious reason loved this bumbling, bungling Wooster, I was the worst of all fools to do anything but learn to return it in spades.
6. In which the author takes the prompt quite literally and attempts to make up for having hurt your feelings:
~700 words, rated R for implied bedroom hijinks and SC for slight crack.
Attire
I bet you think I've got an easy life, don't you? Just hang about, go for a stroll about town once in a while, come back home and get put to rights.
Shows what you know. They never take me anywhere. I can't remember the last time I felt a nice breeze or sunshine, or even saw anything but the inside of the bedroom when I'm not just lying in the dark waiting and waiting.
Perhaps I shouldn't complain; I've got a brother who went to live with a fishmonger. But I've got needs, damn it! If you prick me, I do-- well, I don't bleed, I'll grant you, but it still jolly well hurts!
I thought I'd fallen into a sure thing when Bertie found me, when he ran those smooth long fingers over me and said, "This one."
And for that first day, I was a star. Clubs, golf games, luncheons, and praise everywhere I went. I had Arrived, I thought.
How wrong I was! I should have known it the moment Jeeves picked me up in that rude way-- he should know better!-- and said, "No, sir, I can't say it becomes you."
Well, I'd been smiled down at and lovingly stroked all day long, so surely Bertie would leap to my defence. I knew Jeeves's type. More than one relation of mine has been party to an act of defiance against one of his ilk.
Nothing doing! Old Paisley was blackballed then and there. Just my luck to go home with one of these spineless toffs who let everyone else tell them what to do. Such hopes I'd had! The places we could have gone! But my dreams were crushed with one, "Oh, all right, I won't wear it."
"Bingo liked me!" I cried. "Give me to Bingo! He'll appreciate me properly!" But they didn't hear me. They never hear me.
"I believe we may find some use for it, sir."
I barely had time not to like this Jeeves's tone, for the next thing I knew, I was twisted and pulled in the most awful way-- mind the stitches, my lad!-- choked into a mockery of a horrid schoolboy four-in-hand and wrenched round a bedpost! A bedpost, I tell you! A wrist as well, but what do they take me for? One hears about such things, but you never think it'll happen to you. We don't go in for anything like this on Savile Row!
As for Bertie, or Sir, or whatever his name is, I saw now how fatally wrong I'd been about him. He didn't spare one single though for me or the poor Purple Stripe on the other arm. He just lay there whimpering and carrying on, tugging and twisting and strangling me half to death while Jeeves did things I thankfully couldn't see.
I could hear them well enough, though-- ohs and ahhs and yesyesrighttheres in between the most appalling smacking and slurping and heavy breathing. Then it was pleasepleasenow and the most frightful row of squeaking and creaking, and if I thought the crude knot had hurt, it had not a patch on Sir Bertie grabbing up my tails and pulling on them with his whole weight-- I swear I felt threads pop.
When it was over, Jeeves let me loose with surprising gentleness. "I believe I may have tied them too tightly," he said. Was he sorry? He sounded sorry.
Oh, but not for poor old Paisley, no! All that oh-my-poor-darling business wasn't for me. I was simply left trying not to fall on the floor while Bossy put his mouth to Fathead's wrists with no thought to my precarious-- ouch!
The floor and I had a long time to get acquainted, because there were noises again. More in way of murmurs and sighs this time, horrible soppy lovey-dovey stuff.
Then to add insult to injury, I was replaced not in my prime wardrobe real estate, but in a dark little drawer with the most motley and common lot. A crop, a feather duster, what I think may have been a table tennis paddle, some sort of stick-- the indignity, I tell you! P. Stripe came along, wheezing and limp and vastly the worse for wear, a frightening mirror into my future. I would have shivered if I could.
No, mine is no easy life. I think they'd do me a kindness if they just left me for the rag-pickers. At least Dove Grey can't see me now. 'How far the mighty have fallen,' he'd say in that supercilious way of his. How far, indeed.
Previous efforts || Table of doom
5. In which we mangle a spot of Byron and have an ouchy sort of misunderstanding (sort of):
~1000 words, rated PG with apologies to Lord B.
Octosyllabic
6. In which the author takes the prompt quite literally and attempts to make up for having hurt your feelings:
~700 words, rated R for implied bedroom hijinks and SC for slight crack.
( Attire )
Octosyllabic
All I can offer in my own defence is that I was fried to the tonsils at the time and not thinking clearly. It was during one of those interminable periods of purgatory-- or perhaps it's limbo-- more commonly known as Jeeves's annual holiday. I always make my best go at bearing up admirably under these circs, but I've never lasted even close to the full fortnight without finding myself a mere shadow of what was and pining for the good old days.
On this particular occasion, said pining had led to rather a drowning of sorrows alongside several sympathetic pals at the Drones and continued long after I'd been poured into a cab and rowed homewards. It speaks rather strongly to my sorry state that I suddenly found myself thinking of some bit of something I'd read that reminded me quite keenly of the absent Jeeves. Without him there to give advice, of course, I made rather a disaster zone of the bookcases before I found it.
Well, I'd nearly found it. It was just about perfect, this bit of verse, except that it was about a girl. As topping a lass as Byron had ever known, I'm sure, but it wouldn't do. The slightly-soaked brain muscle was struck by the inspiration to remedy the oversight, so I hunted up pen and paper and got to remedying. My version of the thing ran thus:
He walks in beauty, like the night
Of cloudless climes and starry skies,
And all that's best of dark and bright
Meets in his aspect and his eyes;
Thus mellowed to that tender light
Which Heaven to gaudy day denies.
One shade the more, one ray the less,
Had half impaired the nameless grace
Which waves in every raven tress
Or softly lightens o'er his face,
Where thoughts serenely sweet express
How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.
And on that cheek and o'er that brow
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,--
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent.
Admittedly, it was just the same but for the odd he or his bunged in where a she or her had been, and some of it was a bit flowery for my taste, but the bits about eloquent brows and grace were just the stuff for the troops, and on reading it over once or twice with the image of floaty females expunged, I felt not quite so terribly alone for a few moments.
At some wee hour I came back to my senses and shoved the thing between the book's pages. The substitute valet (a pale imitation) Jeeves had engaged for the duration cleared the books up on the 'morrow, and I rather forgot all about it.
I forgot so completely, in fact, that when some months later Jeeves asked to borrow the volume in q. I thought nothing of it and airily told him to have at it.
It was only when he presented me with the scrawled-over stationery that Bertram was cast deeply into a new and unique brand of soup.
"I wondered if you wished to keep this, sir," he said with as rum a look as I've ever seen on him, holding the page by its corner as though it were soaked in acid or had little horseshoes printed on it.
The events of the night I'd copied it down came hazily back to me. "No, I don't suppose I need it now," I said. After all, I had no need for imaginary Jeeveses with the real thing front and centre, and it hadn't done much for me anyway.
He made a sort of 'hm' noise and seemed to chew over what he was about to say before he said it. What he said at last was, "If I may make an observation, sir?"
"Observe away, Jeeves," said I.
"You have transcribed Lord Byron's poem with masculine pronouns, sir. Perhaps you misread it?"
"No, it was on purpose," I said with a wave of the hand. "You were off on your holiday, you know, and it sort of reminded me of you but for the female object, so I changed it a bit."
His whole whatsit changed. Countenance, mien, expression-- whatever it was, it altered like I'd never seen it alter, not dissimilar to Zeus or whoever it was getting himself up as a swan. "Sir," he said, and to my surprise was suddenly very, very close to me and conducting a distinct wrapping-round of arms. "I often wondered, but I never dared hope...."
What was about to be a 'steady on, Jeeves,' or similar exclamation-- for there are liberties and then there are liberties-- died on my lips, as said lips were covered by other lips. Jeeves's, to be precise. The Wooster bean is not ordinarily up to quick thinking, but as the fellow I tend to leave the quick thinking to was the one causing the need for it, it managed to come up with the goods. Jeeves had misunderstood me so utterly it was nearly laughable, but I doubted he'd want to be laughed at just now. While I'd been thinking of gliding walks and serene thoughts, of domestic harmony and everything just so, he'd concentrated on the loving hearts and sweet dearness, and had apparently been hoping for some declaration of this s. d. from me for some time.
Well, I mean to say, what? What could I do? If I stopped him and set the facts straight, he'd no doubt be ten streets away before I'd finished getting the words out. I'd been poised to marry the likes of Glossops and Bassetts for smaller cases of mal-compris. And for heaven's sake, this was Jeeves. I was already signed up for life, and happily so, which was more than I could say for any past applicants. The same went for the kissing business. It wasn't one of these sloppy affairs with squashed noses and bumping teeth, and he was warm and it was nice and I found it all a bit stirring quite despite myself.
If he loved me, if this wondrous marvel actually for some mysterious reason loved this bumbling, bungling Wooster, I was the worst of all fools to do anything but learn to return it in spades.
6. In which the author takes the prompt quite literally and attempts to make up for having hurt your feelings:
~700 words, rated R for implied bedroom hijinks and SC for slight crack.
Attire
I bet you think I've got an easy life, don't you? Just hang about, go for a stroll about town once in a while, come back home and get put to rights.
Shows what you know. They never take me anywhere. I can't remember the last time I felt a nice breeze or sunshine, or even saw anything but the inside of the bedroom when I'm not just lying in the dark waiting and waiting.
Perhaps I shouldn't complain; I've got a brother who went to live with a fishmonger. But I've got needs, damn it! If you prick me, I do-- well, I don't bleed, I'll grant you, but it still jolly well hurts!
I thought I'd fallen into a sure thing when Bertie found me, when he ran those smooth long fingers over me and said, "This one."
And for that first day, I was a star. Clubs, golf games, luncheons, and praise everywhere I went. I had Arrived, I thought.
How wrong I was! I should have known it the moment Jeeves picked me up in that rude way-- he should know better!-- and said, "No, sir, I can't say it becomes you."
Well, I'd been smiled down at and lovingly stroked all day long, so surely Bertie would leap to my defence. I knew Jeeves's type. More than one relation of mine has been party to an act of defiance against one of his ilk.
Nothing doing! Old Paisley was blackballed then and there. Just my luck to go home with one of these spineless toffs who let everyone else tell them what to do. Such hopes I'd had! The places we could have gone! But my dreams were crushed with one, "Oh, all right, I won't wear it."
"Bingo liked me!" I cried. "Give me to Bingo! He'll appreciate me properly!" But they didn't hear me. They never hear me.
"I believe we may find some use for it, sir."
I barely had time not to like this Jeeves's tone, for the next thing I knew, I was twisted and pulled in the most awful way-- mind the stitches, my lad!-- choked into a mockery of a horrid schoolboy four-in-hand and wrenched round a bedpost! A bedpost, I tell you! A wrist as well, but what do they take me for? One hears about such things, but you never think it'll happen to you. We don't go in for anything like this on Savile Row!
As for Bertie, or Sir, or whatever his name is, I saw now how fatally wrong I'd been about him. He didn't spare one single though for me or the poor Purple Stripe on the other arm. He just lay there whimpering and carrying on, tugging and twisting and strangling me half to death while Jeeves did things I thankfully couldn't see.
I could hear them well enough, though-- ohs and ahhs and yesyesrighttheres in between the most appalling smacking and slurping and heavy breathing. Then it was pleasepleasenow and the most frightful row of squeaking and creaking, and if I thought the crude knot had hurt, it had not a patch on Sir Bertie grabbing up my tails and pulling on them with his whole weight-- I swear I felt threads pop.
When it was over, Jeeves let me loose with surprising gentleness. "I believe I may have tied them too tightly," he said. Was he sorry? He sounded sorry.
Oh, but not for poor old Paisley, no! All that oh-my-poor-darling business wasn't for me. I was simply left trying not to fall on the floor while Bossy put his mouth to Fathead's wrists with no thought to my precarious-- ouch!
The floor and I had a long time to get acquainted, because there were noises again. More in way of murmurs and sighs this time, horrible soppy lovey-dovey stuff.
Then to add insult to injury, I was replaced not in my prime wardrobe real estate, but in a dark little drawer with the most motley and common lot. A crop, a feather duster, what I think may have been a table tennis paddle, some sort of stick-- the indignity, I tell you! P. Stripe came along, wheezing and limp and vastly the worse for wear, a frightening mirror into my future. I would have shivered if I could.
No, mine is no easy life. I think they'd do me a kindness if they just left me for the rag-pickers. At least Dove Grey can't see me now. 'How far the mighty have fallen,' he'd say in that supercilious way of his. How far, indeed.