Charlotte Mulliner, writer of Vignettes in Verse, meets Aubrey Trefusis, Pastels in Prose, at the Crushed Pansy restaurant and love blossoms. Charlotte is due to visit Aubrey's family home, Bludleigh Court, the following week and Aubrey warns her that the house exerts a spell on visitors, causing them to lose their humanitarian principles. In fact, Aubrey is the odd one out in his family, the rest being firmly of the huntin', shootin' and fishin' brigade.
Once there, all goes well until Aubrey spies a rat and chases it with a parasol ...
| Mr Mulliner | the narrator |
| Charlotte Mulliner | his niece, a poetess with a private income |
| Aubrey Trefusis | another poet, real name Bassinger |
| Sir Alexander Bassinger | his father |
| Reginald Bassinger | his elder brother |
| Wilfred Bassinger | his younger brother |
| Col. Sir Francis Pashley-Drake | his uncle, a gnu persecutor |
| a poet | at the Angler's Rest |
First published 2 February 1929 in Liberty magazine (US) and February 1929 in the Strand magazine.
Gnu
- also called the wildebeest, a type of African antelope.
Wapiti
- a North American deer.
Zebu
- a humped ox of Africa and Asia.
Simoon
- a hot dry dust-laden wind blowing at intervals, especially in the Arabian desert.
'... would raise a hand to touch a rat, save in the way of kindness?'
- loosely from John Tobin, The Honeymoon, Act 2, Scene 1.
Banana oil
- nonsense. Possibly from a 1924 Milton Gross cartoon strip in the New York Evening World. This predates PG's first use by about a year although the OED credits Wodehouse for the phrase. (Says more about the compilers' reading habits than the phrase's origins.)
Kopje
- a small hill.
'... he prayeth best who loveth best all things both great and small.'
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.
'Infirm of purpose ... Give me the air gun!'
- Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act 2, Scene 2.
Moufflon
- a mountain sheep of southern Europe.
Shikarri
- hunting (Urdu).
Cape Dutch
- an old name for Afrikaans.
Bechuanaland
- became Botswana.
Zareba
- a hedged or palisaded enclosure for the protection of a camp, or a restricting or confining influence.
This one's a classic. Charlotte's poem Good Gnus seems to have a life of its own outside the story.