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Wodehouse, P. G. (Pelham Grenville), 1881-1975

"The Clicking of Cuthbert"


So surely had I read the pallor of her face and the wild look of dumb
agony in her eyes that I was not surprised when, as I sat one morning
in my garden reading Ray on Taking Turf, my man announced her name. I
had been half expecting her to come to me for advice and consolation,
for I had known her ever since she was a child. It was I who had given
her her first driver and taught her infant lips to lisp "Fore!" It is
not easy to lisp the word "Fore!" but I had taught her to do it, and
this constituted a bond between us which had been strengthened rather
than weakened by the passage of time.
She sat down on the grass beside my chair, and looked up at my face in
silent pain. We had known each other so long that I know that it was
not my face that pained her, but rather some unspoken _malaise_ of
the soul. I waited for her to speak, and suddenly she burst out
impetuously as though she could hold back her sorrow no longer.
"Oh, I can't stand it! I can't stand it!"
"You mean...?" I said, though I knew only too well.
"This horrible obsession of poor George's," she cried passionately.


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