The Rev. has a life but will he get a living?
| Lord Emsworth | a peer of the realm |
| Freddie Threepwood | his son, the Honourable Frederick |
| Gertrude | his niece |
| Rupert Bingham | wishes to marry Gertrude |
| Beach | butler to Lord Emsworth |
First published September 1928 in the Strand magazine.
Also published October 1928 in Cosmopolitan (US).
Half-crown
- two shillings and sixpence.
Tithe
- a local tax for the support of church and clergy, at one time collected in kind hence the tithe barn. No longer levied.
Bastille
- prison in Paris, famously stormed in the French Revolution.
Living
- benefice, a property held by an ecclesiastical officer, especially a vicar.
'The basilisk glare died out of his eyes.'
- the basilisk was a mythical reptile with poisonous breath and stare.
'She suggested something symbolic out of Maeterlinck.'
- Maeterlinck was a literature Nobel laureate whose works had little action, involved fatalism and the constant presence of death - a real bundle of joy.
'[he] stuck closer than a brother ...'
- a reference to Proverbs: Chapter 18, Verse 24.
'... Mary who aroused a similar attachment in the bosom of her lamb.'
- usually described as a nursery rhyme but actually a poem by Sarah Josepha Hale.
'In a less censorious age he would have been a Borgia.'
- the Borgias were a family of fifteenth century Italians famed for their licentious and murderous behaviour. Poisoning was reputedly one of their methods for removing enemies.
Kris
- a Malay dagger with a wavy blade.
'... with something of King Lear in his demeanour ...'
- in Shakespeare's play, King Lear turned on two of his daughters who had offended him then went mad.
For many years I thought the mix-up of the balsam a little far-fetched. Then a local town-based pharmacist started to stock a few animal medicines etc, admittedly on the top shelf behind a plastic barrier, and I realised that in country areas such practices would have been common.