MR MULLINER SPEAKING

ARCHIBALD'S INTELLECT

People who enjoyed a merely superficial acquaintance with my nephew Archibald ((said Mr Mulliner) were accustomed to set him down as just an ordinary pin-headed young man. It was only when they came to know him better that they discovered their mistake. Then they realised that his pin-headedness, so far from being ordinary, was exceptional. Even at the Drone's Club, where the average of intellect is not high, it was often said of Archibald  that, had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.

THE TOUGH EGG

" You do not think that a man with such a name would be likely to be a toughish sort of egg?"
" He might be , now you mention it."
" He was. In Central Africa, where he spent a good deal of time exploring, ostriches would bury their heads in the sand at Brashford Braddock's approach and even rhinoceroses, the most ferocious beasts in existence, frequently edged behind trees and hid till he passed. And the moment he came into Osbert's life my nephew realised with a sickening clearness that those rhinoceroses had known their business.

OSBERT'S WEALTH

He (Mr Osbert) had so much money that Income-Tax assessors screamed with joy when forwarding Schedule D to his address.

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