Leave It to Psmith Book

In trying to explain to my husband exactly why I find Wodehouse so laugh-out-loud funny, I used this passage: "One uses the verb 'descend' advisedly, for what is required is some word suggesting instantaneous activity. About Baxter's progress from the second floor to the first there was nothing halting or hesitating. He, so to speak, did it now." This is a brilliant example of Wodehouse's ability to put it just so, - how can you explain this any better? "Planting his food firmly on a golf-ball which the Hon. Freddie Threepwood, who had been practising putting in the corridor before retiring to bed, had left in his casual fashion just where the steps began, he took the entire stiarcase in one majestic, volplanning sweep." This is an excellent example of Wodehouse's exquisite characterization. I was in tears, tears, imagining that Hon. gentleman, able to see perfectly his plan to practice putting near the stairs & then wandering off absentmindedly. ". . . . He came to rest with a squattering thud on the lower landing, and for a moment or two the fever of the chase left him." Fever of the chase! Slays me! As astute readers of Wodehouse will no doubt know, Baxter always Suspects but when oh when will he ever stop rushing downstairs in the dark to try to catch the criminal? It always ends badly. At least there was no tongue involved in this episode.

My husband did not quite get it. But Wodehouse is surely one of the finest comic minds of our time or any time at all. Genius.