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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LAUGHS FROM ' BIG MONEY '

CARRYING DICTIONARY

" I'm sorry," said Ann. " I should have....It was too bad of me......But you know how it is when you're nervous."

" Nervous! " Lord Hoddesdon snorted. " You nervous? If ever I've seen a girl calmer and more -er- what's the word? -more-ah-...begins with a b...."
" George, " said Lady Vera, " be quiet. "

Lord Hoddesdon subsided into his chair. He seemed to be wishing that he had brought his Dictionary of Synonyms along with him this evening.

CHOOSY PEKE

Ann detached a piece of cake and dropped it before the Peke(the dog). The Peke sniffed at it disparagingly, and resumed its steady gaze (at the dinner table). It wanted chicken. It is simple creed of the Peke that, where two human beings are gathered together to eat, chicken must enter into the proceedings somewhere.

SHAREHOLDES' MEET IN TUMMY!

( Mr Paterson, the CEO of a Company, lay in his bed with severe indigestion after eating roast duck....)
What was going on in T. Paterson's interior resembled in some degree a stormy Shareholders' Meeting. Nasty questions were being asked. Voices were being raised. At times it seemed as though violence had broken out. And the pepsine tablets which he kept swallowing so hopefully were accomplishing nothing more than might on such an occasion the bleating ' Gentleman, please! ' of an inefficient chairman.

WHAT BOOZE DID

A diet of large whiskies and small sodas, persisted in through the whole of a  long afternoon and evening and augmented by an occasional neat brandy, is thing that cuts, as it were, both ways. ..............: but it had left him in a state of uncertainty on three cardinal points.
They were:
[a] Who was he?
[b] Where was he?
[c] Why was he?

( Contents within brackets are blog-author's inputs for clarity)
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FUN FROM ' BIG MONEY '

CON GAME

"But I keep telling you that (the company) Dream Come True hasn't any copper in it."(said Berry)

"Well, there are always mugs in the world, aren't there? It will be a sorry day for England,"said Lord Biskerton, "when you can't find some mug to buy a mine, however dud. You say yours hasn't anything in it? My old guv'nor once bought shares in an oil-well, and not only there was no oil, there wasn't even a well."


PENURY

(When Mr Frisby, Berry's employer, learns that his subordinate Berry hobnobs with the elite crowd, says,)
"I don't understand you," he(Mr Frisby) said. "You seem to mix with the Four Hundred, go to school with their nephews and all that, and here you are, working in my office on a..."

"Ridiculously small salary, sir?" ( said Berry). "Very true. It's rather a sad story. I was adopted by a rich aunt, and she suddenly turned into a poor aunt."

PLACID MULBERRY GROVE

Nothing marred the quiet peace of Mulberry Grove. No policeman ever came near it. Trademen's boys, when they entered it on tricycles, hushed their whistling. And even stray dogs, looking in with the idea of having a bark at the swans, checked themselves with an apologetic cough on seeing where they were and backed out respectfully.

(Contents in the brackets are blog author's inputs for clarity)

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PLUS MONEY FOR NOTHING

BURNING DESIRE

Gradually, driving everything from his mind, there stole upon him the realisation that unless he found something immediately to slake the thirst(for whisky) which was burning him up, he would perish of spontaneous combustion.

INTENSE DISLIKE

Mr Chimp regarded his partner with disfavour. He wished he had never seen Mr Molloy. He wished he might never see him again. He wished he were not seeing him now.

THE PUPPET

His hair was disordered, his face streaked with dust and heat, and his legs acted so independently of his body that gave him an odd appearance of moving in several directions at once.

CHAT 'N' WORK

It began to seem to Mr Soapy that the staffs of the English country houses must be selected primarily for their powers of conversation.Every domestic with whom he come in contact in Rudge Hall so far had had at his disposal an apparently endless flow of lively small-talk. The butler, if you let him, would gossip all day about rabbits and there was a chauffeur apparently settling down to dictate his autobiography.

MONEY FOR NOTHING

COMFY AMBIANCE

"Along its narrow High Street, the only sign of life visible were a cat stropping its backbone against the Jubilee Watering Trough, some flies doing deep breathing exercises on the hot window-sills, and a little group of serious thinkers who, propped up against the wall of Carmody Arms(a pub), were waiting for that establishment to open.

TOILING BYWATER

Chas. Bywater is a live wire. He takes no afternoon siesta, but works while others sleep. (The town of) Rudge as a whole is inclined after luncheon to go to the back room, put a handkerchief over its face and take things easy for a bit.

{My Note: Chas. Bywater is a Nosy Parker who does not wish to miss any juicy bits of local gossip - the real reason for afternoon wakefulness!}

BURSTING WITH SECRET

Whether, if in a condition to give the matter careful thought, he would have selected Chas. Bywater as a confidant(to tell all), one can not say. But he(Colonel Wyvern) was not in such a condition. The stoppered bottle does not care whose is the hand that removes the cork - all it wants is chance to fizz and colonel Wyvern resembled such a bottle.

TOUCHING ON A STINGY UNCLE

{My Note: Mr Carmody's nephew, in order to humour his uncle before asking him for cash says}

"You look very fit, uncle."

Mr Carmody's reply to this was to make a noise like a buffalo pulling its foot out of the swamp. It might have been intended to be genial, or it might not Hugo(the nephew) could not tell. However, he was a reasonable young man, and quite understood that it would be foolish to expect the milk of human kindness to come gushing like a geyser out of a two hundred and twenty pound uncle who had been doing (strenuous) bending and stretching exercises.

[ All entries in the brackets are blog author's inputs for clarity of background facts]