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- From: kannan@lamar.ColoState.EDU (Kannan Subramanian)
- Subject: Extracts
- Sender: news@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU (News Account)
- Message-ID: <Jan22.221230.76813@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
- Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1993 22:12:30 GMT
- Nntp-Posting-Host: lamar.colostate.edu
- Organization: Colorado State University
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-
-
- Two gems from the Mulliner world.
-
- -- (opener from "The Story of William")
-
- Miss Postlethwaite, our able and vigilant barmaid, had whispered to us that
- the gentleman sitting over there in the corner was an American gentleman.
-
- "Comes from America," added Miss Postlethwaite, making her meaning clearer.
-
- "From America?" echoed we.
-
- "From America," said Miss Postlethwaite. "He's an American."
-
- -- from "The Juice of an Orange" in "The Mulliners of Hollywood" - PGW --
-
- (begin extract)
-
- The advice all good doctors give to those who have been disappointed in love
- is to eat lightly. Fail to do this, and the result is as inevitable as the
- climax of a Greek tragedy. No man, however gifted his gastric juices, can go
- on indefinitely brooding over a lost love and sailing into the starchy foods
- simultaneously. It was not long before indigestion gripped Wilmot, and for
- almost the first time in his life he was compelled to consult a physician.
- And the one he selected was a man of drastic views.
-
- "On rising," he told Wilmot, "take the juice of an orange. For luncheon, the
- juice of an orange. And for dinner the juice" - he paused a moment before
- springing the big surprise - "of an orange. For the rest, I am not an
- advocate of nourishment between meals, but I am inclined to think that,
- should you become faint during the day - or possibly the night - there will
- be no harm in your taking ... well, yes, I really see no reason why you should
- not take the juice of - let us say - an orange."
-
- Wilmot stared. His manner resembled that of a wolf on the steppes of Russia
- who, expecting a peasant, is fobbed off with wafer biscuit.
-
- "But aren't you leaving out something?"
-
- "I beg your pardon?"
-
- "How about steaks?"
-
- "Most decidedly no steaks."
-
- "Chops, then?"
-
- "Absolutely no chops."
-
- "But the way I figure it out - check my figures in case I'm wrong - you're
- suggesting that I live solely on orange-juice."
-
- "On the juice of an orange," corrected the doctor. "Precisely. Take your
- orange. Divide it into two equal parts. Squeeze on a squeezer. Pour into
- a glass ... or cup," he added, for he was not the man to be finicky about
- small details, "and drink."
-
- Put like that, it sounded a good and even amusing trick, but Wilmot left
- the consulting room with his heart bowed down. He was a young man who all his
- life had been accustomed to take his meals in a proper spirit of seriousness,
- grabbing everything there was and, if there was no more, filling up with
- biscuits and butter. The vista which this doctor had opened up struck him as
- bleak to a degree and I think that, had not a couple of wild cats at this
- moment suddenly started a rather ugly fight inside him, he would have abandoned
- the whole project.
-
- The cats, however, decided him. He stopped at the nearest market and ordered
- a crate of oranges to be dispatched to his address. Then, having purchased a
- squeezer, he was ready to begin the new life.
-
- -- end extract.
-
- Incidentally, for die-hard Bertie and Jeeves fans, who was Bertie's valet
- before he hired Jeeves? And who did Jeeves work for before Bertie?
-
- cheers,
- kannan
-
- ps - "Wilberforce" & "Reginald" are right.
-