Blandings: The Little Warrior

A stoup of malvoisie
- a stoup is a beaker, flagon or drinking vessel; malvoisie is malmsey, a strong, sweet wine.

'In the old days when he had fagged for him at Winchester ...'
- 'fagged' refers to the practice of junior boys at public schools running errands or gophering for older boys, usually assigned one-to-one. Winchester is one of England's oldest public (fee-paying) schools.

'Young Threepwood'
- presumably Freddie Threepwood from the Blandings books. Wodehouse's characters lived in a remarkably small world, socially speaking.

Piquet
- a card game for two players using only the Ace to seven of each suit (32 cards).

Juggernaut
- the name of an image of Krishna carried in procession on a big wheeled cart under which devotees [allegedly] threw themselves. Today, juggernaut is slang for any large lorry or truck.

'... the hand that rocked their cradle still rules their lives ...'
- William Ross Wallace, What rules the world.

They say that man is mighty,
He governs land and sea;
He wields a mighty scepter
O'er lesser powers that be;
And the hand that rocks the cradle
Is the hand that rules the world

Burke's Peerage
- Burke's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage to give it its full title.

'... the friend that sticketh closer than a brother.'
- Proverbs: Chapter 18, Verse 24.

A man that hath friends must shew himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.

'Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of the party.'
- a typing drill, a practice sentence.

Ulster
- in this context, a long, loose overcoat of rough cloth, often with a belt.

Mentone
- a resort on the south coast of France, by the Italian border and close to Monte Carlo.

Albany
- two blocks of chambers or apartments (total 69) around a courtyard, built in 1802.

'Who are her people?'
- an enquiry about her family effectively asking 'are they in our class?'. Only a snob would ask in such a manner.

Prince's
- a sports club in Knightsbridge, London, from 1883/4, offering rackets, real tennis and, from 1900, ice hockey. (There was also a Prince's restaurant in Jermyn Street, St. James's.)

'John took me round to see his mother ... Poor John!'
- Poor John! Poor John!, a song from 1906 by Henry Pether and Fred Leigh, used later in the film Cover Girl.

'Better a dinner of 'erbs where love is than a stalled ox and 'atred therewith, ...'
- Proverbs: Chapter 15, Verse 17.

Better is a dinner of herbs where love is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.

'Kind 'earts are more than coronets and simple faith more than Norman blood, aren't they?'
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Stanza 7.

Howe'er it be, it seems to me,
'T is only noble to be good.
Kind hearts are more than coronets,
And simple faith than Norman blood.

Murat
- Joachim Murat (1767-1815), Marshal of France and King of Naples and Sicily.

'... man is born to sorrow as the sparks fly upward ...'
- Job: Chapter 5, Verse 7. Often quoted as here but the King James Version has:

Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.

'... Lord Fauntleroy suits and golden curls.'
- referring to the main character in Little Lord Fauntleroy by Frances Hodgson Burnett (1896). A Fauntleroy suit was usually of velvet, with knee breeches and a broad collar and cuffs trimmed with lace.

'I feel like Rip van Winkle. Old and withered!'
- R V Winkle was the subject of the short story by Washington Irving in which he took a drink from a flagon that put him to sleep for twenty years.

Brocken spectre
- a phenomenon where the observer's shadow is cast onto clouds and appears to be enormous, an illusion due to confusion over distance, the cloud being closer than it appears. Named after the Brocken peak in Germany where such things have occurred.

'Well, Casabianca ... I don't want to lure you from the burning deck ...'
- Mrs Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Casabianca.

The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;

Eton suit
- a school uniform that became a general boys' fashion in the early 1900s, with a short jacket and a broad starched collar.

Cleopatra's Needle
- an ancient Egyptian obelisk, transplanted to the Thames Embankment in London. The Embankment is the usual name given to the Victoria Embankment, a road running along the north side of the Thames between Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges.

'I never told my love but let concealment, like a worm 'i the bud ...'
- Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act 2, Scene 4.

She never told her love,
But let concealment, like a worm i' the bud
Feed on her damask cheek;

'This was how a man ought to take the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.'
- from Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1.

'I have eaten rose-leaves and am no more a golden ass, so to speak'
- a reference to Apuleius, Metamorphoses. Commonly called The Golden Ass of Apuleius, it tells of the author being turned into an ass and his adventures in finding the rose-leaves that will restore his human shape.

'The Girl from Yonkers'
- by Fred J. Beaman, George Evans, Baptist and Franconi, it opened on 27 January 1908 at Keeney's Theatre, Brooklyn. (No trace of 'Wow! Wow!')

George Bevan
- and his play Follow the Girl are from the earlier Wodehouse book A Damsel in Distress.

'She looks like Dunsany's Bird of a Difficult Eye.'
- Lord Dunsany, title of story The Bird with the Difficulty Eye.

'It was as though Prometheus, with the vultures tearing his liver, had been asked if he were piqued.'
- Prometheus was the Greek god who gave fire to mortals and who, for this and other transgressions, was chained to a rock where an eagle tore out his liver by day only for him to be healed by night. One assumes he was a little more than piqued at this treatment.

'There might be specks upon her idol - that its feet might be clay ...'
- feet of clay means a flaw or character defect in a person otherwise revered.

Ovington Square
- is located as described and consists of 5-storey white stucco terraced houses. PG knew the Bowes-Lyon family who lived there.

Reference to the fiery furnace and to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego
- see Daniel: Chapter 3.

Vagrom cats
- vagrom means vagrant (from Shakespeare) hence vagrom cats are strays.

'... emerging from areas ...'
- referring to light well or basement areas, a feature of terraced houses where there is a sub-ground entrance to the basement in front of the house with steps up to the surface level and railings in front. These provide light to the basement and, originally, access to staff and tradesmen. Many are now apartments.

Daubeny Street
- not on today's map. The comment about streets near railway stations is sadly true.

Daily Mail and Daily Express
- national newspapers papers with different publishers, so quite possibly with different flavours for the discerning parrot.

'... he lost completely the repose which stamps the caste of a Vere de Vere.'
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Lady Clara Vere de Vere, Stanza 5.

Indeed I heard one bitter word
That scarce is fit for you to hear;
Her manners had not that repose
Which stamps the caste of Vere de Vere.

'... cleansed his stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart, ...'
- Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 3.

'Hearts ... just as pure and fair may beat in Belgrave Square as in the lowlier air of Seven Dials.'
- W. S. Gilbert, Iolanthe, Act 1. ('Lowly' not 'lowlier'.) Belgrave Square is at the centre of the fashionable and respectable Belgravia area of London; it now contains several embassies. Seven Dials is a small area of central London, at one time reputed as a den of criminals and still not entirely respectable.

'Boat-Race Night at the Empire'
- at this time Boat Race Night, the evening of the annual rowing race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge on the Thames, would be well celebrated by students and graduates. The Empire was a music hall, in Leicester Square on a site now occupied by the Empire Cinema, and as such would have been fairly lively already.

Chelsea
- an area of London just west of Belgravia and Pimlico; it has a police station.

'... the sky the colour of a hedge-sparrow's egg.'
- a uniform bright but pale blue. The hedge sparrow or dunnock Prunella modularis is a common bird throughout Europe. A recent move to re-name it the 'Hedge Accentor' should be resisted vigorously as both wholly unnecessary and confusing. Just how many aliases does a small bird need?

'Young man, go west!'
- misquoted from the exhortation popularized by Horace Greely from the original attributed to John Soule.

'I was what Shakespeare calls a "fat and greasy citizen"!'
- As You Like It, Act 2, Scene 1.

'I have heard the beat of the off-shore wind ...'
- Rudyard Kipling, The Long Trail.

You have heard the beat of the off-shore wind,
And the thresh of the deep-sea rain;
You have heard the song - how long? how long?
Pull out on the trail again!

'Gunga Din'
- another poem by Kipling, one of his most famous, even turned into a film starring a young Cary Grant.

'... days on the river, days at Hurlingham, days at Lord's, days at the Academy.'
- 'the river' without any qualification is always the river Thames; Hurlingham, a country house and grounds, next to the Thames by Fulham, is home of the Hurlingham Polo Association; Lord's is the premier cricket ground in England; and the Academy is probably the Royal Academy of Art in London.

'She would come to him like the beggar-maid to Cophetua.'
- perhaps best known from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's, The Beggar Maid although the story is much older.

So sweet a face, such angel grace,
In all that land had never been:
Cophetua sware a royal oath:
'This beggar maid shall be my queen!'

Pilgrim, Delectable Mountains and the Slough of Despond
- references to John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.

Ambrose Channel lightship
- marked the entrance to the Ambrose Channel, the main deep water route in and out of New York and New Jersey harbours. There were several ships serving this purpose from 1823 to 1967 when the last was replaced by a light tower.

Brookport
- does not appear on a Long Island map but the areas Brookhaven and Bellport are adjacent and are behind Fire Island as in the description of Brookport.

Down to Gehenna or up to the throne,
He who travels fastest travels alone.

'... a sort of Southend in winter.'
- Southend-on-Sea was a resort, at the mouth of the River Thames in Essex, for the (poor) people of London's East End. It has since grown some large office buildings but in winter still looks like a town in mourning for sunnier days.

Sandringham
- the Royal Family's house and estate in Norfolk, where they usually spend the Christmas holiday season.

'Thomas ... like a Whistler picture, was an arrangement in black and white.
- alluding to James Abbott McNeill Whistler (1834-1903), famous for the painting popularly known as 'Whistler's Mother' but properly titled Arrangement in Grey and Black: The Artist's Mother.

Zola, Gorky, Dostoievsky and Tolstoi
- four famous and serious writers: Emile Zola (1840-1902) French novelist and journalist, including a set of novels about two families, one good, one bad; Maxim Gorky (1868-1936) Russian dramatist and novelist; Fyodor Dostoievsky (1821-81) Russian novelist; and Count Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), novelist (War and Peace and Anna Karenina), essayist, dramatist and philosopher.

Sir Philip Sidney
- (1554-86) poet, Elizabethan courtier and soldier. The story goes that when dying he gave his bottle of water to another wounded soldier saying 'Your need is greater than mine.'

Miss-in-baulk
- a term from billiards indicating a penalty without loss of turn.

'... I'll cut him dead.'
- not as violent as it sounds, to 'cut' is to refuse to recognise an acquaintance; a studied insult.

Bachelors
- a club in Piccadilly, active around the early 1900s (but no trace since).

'... gave him a drink and a toofer.'
- toofer is obviously 'two for' but two of what and for how much remains a mystery. I suspect two cigars for a shilling - it's hard to judge prices at this distance in time.

Worshipful Dry-Salters Company
- drysalters are dealers in dyes, gums, oils, pickles, tinned meats etc. Worshipful Company indicates one of the old trade associations or guild-like bodies of the City of London also know as Livery Companies. Drysalters are not among them in reality although the Salters are.

'A goose, qualifying for the role of a pot of pate de foies gras, probably has exactly the same jaundiced outlook.'
- because the geese are force-fed corn so that their livers swell with the corn stuff and so give the pate its distinctive flavour. This is why some people refuse to eat foies gras.

Count of Monte Christo
- the lead character in the book of that name, by Alexandre Dumas, who acquires a treasure and so becomes very wealthy.

East 57th Street
- (which Major Selby gave as his address) is in Midtown at the Central Park end.

Century Roof
- the roof theatre on the Century Theatre at Central Park West and 62nd and 63rd Streets (1909-29).

Jazz-and-hokum
- a style of blues music apparently from 1920s' vaudeville, possibly involving double-entendres.

Keith Circuit
- a large and reputable vaudeville circuit (sort of booking agency) started by B. F. Keith in the USA at the end of the 19th century and running at least into the 1920s.

'Maybe we didn't gool 'em, eh!'
- US slang meaning to elicit great applause from an audience by one's entertainment.

Tank town
- a small town (so small that steam trains only stopped to take on water.)

Gotham Theatre
- probably not in existence at the time this book was written; the Central Theatre became the Gotham Theatre in 1944.

'[they] were greeted, like Moses on Pisgah, with a fleeting glimpse of the promised land ...'
- Deuteronomy: Chapter 34, Verses 1 - 5.

'Thomas Jefferson held these truths to be self-evident ... happiness.'
- from the American Declaration of Independence.

Bryant Hall
- a hall at 6th and 42nd street, New York, at least between 1913 and 1929.

Rialto
- in this context, the name for the junction of Broadway and 14th Street initially, but which migrated northwards with the theatre district.

'... a curious noise like Futurist music.'
- futurism has been described as a 20th century art movement which tried to capture the dynamism and speed of modern life. This doesn't explain what futurist music sounds like, but we shouldn't expect a Gershwin melody.

Rockefeller
- John D. Rockefeller, (1839-1937) US multi-millionaire, once the richest man in America, also a philanthropist.

Madison Avenue
- a fashionable street, now synonymous with the advertising industry.

Steam-heat
- a central heating system based on a central boiler producing steam which is piped to room radiators. (Unreliable and noisy, it was still preferred over hot water systems in high rise buildings at one time as steam rises where water could not easily be pumped.)

Amsterdam Avenue
- 10th Avenue from 59th Street northwards (Upper West Side of Manhattan).

'Just see them Pullman porters, dolled up with scented waters ...'
- The Pullman Porters on Parade by Irving Berlin (1913).

Just see those Pullman porters
Dolled up with perfumed waters
Bought by their dimes and quarters
Here they come, here they come, here they come

'I can't help telling the truth. Washington was just the same.'
- from the statement attributed to George Washington:

'And this, if I mistake not, Watson, is my client now.'
- the sort of thing Sherlock Holmes said to Dr Watson in the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, such as in The Problem of Thor Bridge.

But here, if I mistake not, is our client, considerably before his time.

Biltmore
- the Biltmore Hotel on 43rd Street and Madison Avenue with 1000 rooms, now the Bank of America Plaza. Wodehouse stayed there in April 1921.

Metropolitan Tower
- probably the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. Tower at 1 Madison Avenue, opened in 1909 and at one time the tallest building in the world. (Not the black glass eyesore at 146 and 57th.)

Polo Grounds
- the home of the New York Giants baseball team until 1958, at 155th St and 8th Ave (the stadium was pulled down in 1964).

Coney Island
- a group of amusement parks at the south-west corner of Long Island.

Morning Telegraph
- the New York Morning Telegraph, a newspaper that had been around for many years at the time this book was published but is no longer.

Mary Pickford
- (1892-1979) Canadian film star and co-founder of United Artists.

Wall Street
- a street in lower Manhattan, home of the New York Stock Exchange and generally shorthand for the finance area and US financial interests.

Keystone Kops
- comic policeman in a series of knockabout silent films from 1912 into the early 20's, produced by Mack Sennett's Keystone studios. Also, and possibly correctly, known as the Keystone Cops.

St. Vitus' Dance
- also called chorea, a disorder involving convulsive involuntary movements.

'He reminds me of the troops of Midian in the hymn. The chappies who prowled and prowled around.'

Doss Chiderdoss
- probably a pen name for A. R. Marshall who wrote poems, including some in rhyming slang. At least one The Rhyme of the Rusher was published in the Sporting Times.

Hotel Cosmopolis
- one of PG's inventions, it features heavily in the earlier book The Indiscretions of Archie.

Pulmotor
- a pressure-driven device used to relieve respiratory distress and in resuscitation. Apparently, although the original device is long obsolete, the basic principles are still used a hundred years later.

'Alice in Wonderland'
- properly Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll. The Mad-Hatters Tea Party was perpetual after he quarrelled with Time.

'There's never a law of God or man runs north of the fifty-three.'
- Rudyard Kipling, The Rhyme of the Three Sealers.

Atlantic City
- in New Jersey. PG's The Girl Behind the Gun probably had its try-out in Atlantic City only two years before this book.

Babes in the Wood
- a traditional tale, known in the 16th C., about two children abandoned in a wood who die and their bodies are covered with leaves by robins.

O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

'... looking in on Job with Bildad the Shuhite and all his friends.'
- Bildad was one of 'Job's comforters' in Job: Chapter 2, Verse 11.

Now when Job's three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

O. P. side
- Opposite Prompt, the side of the stage opposite to the one with the prompter's desk (Prompt Side). As the desk is stage left, the left hand side as the actors face the audience, opposite prompt is stage right. (It's similar to port and starboard as PS and OP are independent of whether you're on stage looking out or in the audience looking at the stage.)

'I'm for 'em, Father Abraham, a hundred thousand strong.'
- based on We Are Coming, Father Abraham a song of the American Civil War from 1862 by James Sloan Gibbons and Stephen Foster. (Father Abraham is Lincoln.)

We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more,
From Mississippi's winding stream and from New England's shore;

'And I'm glad - glad - glad, if you don't mind me quoting Pollyanna for a moment.'
- Pollyanna is the eponymous heroine of a series of children's books about a young girl who tries to be 'glad', whatever happens. 'I'm glad - glad - glad' is almost her catchphrase, she says it so often.

'Adjust the impression that I fear any Goble in shining armour.'
- referring to the song I Fear No Foe with words by E. Oxenford, music by Ciro Pinsuti, 1886.

I fear no foe in shining armour
Though his lance be swift and keen
But I fear and love the glamour
Through thy drooping lashes seen

Star-Spangled Banner
- officially the US national anthem since 1931. The lyrics come from a poem written in 1814 by Francis Scott Key, about an incident in the War of 1812 between the USA and Britain.

Rochester, Baltimore, Troy, Utica, Syracuse and Hartford
- Rochester, Syracuse, Utica and Troy are in New York state (about 150-250 miles from Broadway), Baltimore is in Maryland about 50 miles from Washington DC and Hartford is in Connecticut.

National Geographic Magazine
- the monthly magazine of the National Geographic Society, instantly recognisable by the yellow border on its front cover, founded in 1888.

When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.

'I could sympathize with Macbeth when he chatted with Banquo.'
- referring to Shakespeare's Macbeth in which Banquo is murdered on the instructions of his friend Macbeth but returns to haunt him.

'... hardened principles stared at each other in a wild surmise ...'
- a Wodehouse favourite: John Keats, On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.

He star'd at the Pacific - and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise -

'[His] emotions were akin to those of the Spartan boy with the fox under his vest.'
- referring to the story of a Spartan boy who hid a fox beneath his tunic and allowed it to eat his vital organs without uttering a sound. (There are differing explanations of why he hid the fox.)

'I am sure it is going to be another "Merry Widow".'
- the highly successful operetta The Merry Widow by Franz Lehár, first performed in 1905 (English language version 1907).

'... of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: "It might have been!"'
- John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller.

There's Only One Girl in the World for Me
- possibly the popular song from around 1891 by Dave Marion. (The lyrics don't match the preceding few lines but it's not clear whether PG intended that they should.)

'... he experienced the emotions of the Peri who, in the poem "at the gate of Eden stood disconsolate.",'
- Thomas Moore, Paradise and the Peri.

One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood disconsolate;

'He uttered a mirthless, Byronic laugh.'
- Byronic means dark, mysterious or moody, after Lord Byron.

'I wouldn't speak to the cootie again ...'
- Reckless has 'man' instead of cootie which rules out the children's meaning of unspecified disease. Possibly it relates to relates to the alternate meaning of head louse in the sense of something unpleasant or disgusting. One of many PGW uses that can't be easily traced to an origin or clear meaning.

Morituri te salutant
- 'We who are about to die, salute you' - said by the gladiators in the Roman games to Caesar.

Jezail-bullets
- bullets fired from a jezail, an Afghan musket (flintlock or matchlock) with a large bore. The gun had a significantly longer range than the British equivalent.

'The die is cast!'
- said by Julius Caesar at the crossing of the (river) Rubicon, meaning there's no going back.

The Little Warrior

Notes and Quotes