“People who enjoyed a merely superficial acquaintance
with my nephew Archibald (said Mr Mulliner) were accustomed to set him down as
just an ordinary pinheaded young man. It was only when they came to know him
better that they discovered their mistake. Then they realized that his
pinheadedness, so far from being ordinary, was exceptional. Even at the Drones
Club, where the average of intellect is not high, it was often said of
Archibald that, had his brains been constructed of silk, he would have been
hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of
cami-knickers. He sauntered through life with a cheerful insouciance, and up to
the age of twenty-five had only once been moved by anything in the nature of a
really strong emotion – on the occasion when, in the heart of Bond Street and
at the height of the London season, he discovered that his man, Meadowes, had
carelessly sent him out with odd spats on.”—English humorist P.G. Wodehouse
(1881-1975), “The Reverent Wooing of Archibald,” in
Mr. Mulliner Omnibus
(1972)
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