The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club quotes

“I find you refreshing, Wimsey,” said Fentiman, languidly. “You’re not in the least witty, but you have a kind of obvious facetiousness which reminds me of the less exacting class of music-hall.”

“It’s the self-defense of the first-class mind against the superior person,” said Wimsey.

“But, look here, I’m sorry to hear about Sheila. I don’t want to be offensive, old man, but why don’t you let me—”

Fentiman laughed. Peal after hysterical peal shook his throat. All round the room, scandalized Bellonians creaked to their gouty feet, shocked by the unmannerly noise.

“Take him away!” said Fentiman, “take him away. He’s been dead two days! So are you! So am I! We’re all dead and we never noticed it!”

Wimsey put his long, strong hands under the stiff arms; the doctor gathered up the legs; they moved away.

They looked like a dreadful little Guy Fawkes procession, with that humped and unreverend mannequin bobbing and swaying between them.

The door closed after them, and a tension seemed removed. The circle broke up into groups. Somebody lit a cigarette. The planet’s tyrant, dotard Death, had held his gray mirror before them for a moment and shown them the image of things to come.

A veteran close at hand looked angrily at him and rustled the Times loudly. Wimsey ignored these signals, barricading himself behind his paper. The veteran sank back again, muttering something about “young men” and “no decency.”

Wimsey sat on unmoved, and paid no attention, even when a man from The Twaddler came in, escorted by the Secretary, to take photographs of the smoking-room.

A few sensitives retired before this attack. Wetheridge waddled away with a grumbling protest into the library. It gave Wimsey considerable satisfaction to see the relentless camera pursue him into that stronghold.

“Give the letters to me; I’ll see they’re posted. Now you needn’t worry any more about it. Murbles and I will see to it all, and the detective-wallah is looking after Oliver all right, so you can run away and play.”

“I’m sure you’re going to say how good it is of me to take all this trouble. Delighted, I’m sure. It’s of no consequence. A pleasure, in fact. Have a drink.”

The disconcerted major refused the drink rather shortly and prepared to depart.

The cork popped merrily, and Lord Peter rose to his feet.

“Bunter,” said he, “I give you a toast. The triumph of Instinct over Reason!”

“But I wish you’d kept out of it, Sally,” mourned Peter.

“Oh, God,” said Salcombe, “nobody loves us. It’s a forsaken thing to be a poor bloody reporter.”

He tossed a lank black lock of hair back from his forehead and wept.

“It would be a death from heart-failure,” corrected the doctor, patiently.

Doctors are weary of explaining that heart-failure is not a specific disease, like mumps or housemaid’s knee.

It is this incompatibility of outlook between the medical and the lay mind which involves counsel and medical witnesses in a fog of misunderstanding and mutual irritation.

“What have I said?” cried Father Whittington, much disconcerted.

“You have reminded science,” said Wimsey, “that only the Pope is infallible.”

“No?—but there must have been a reason. Dante, you may remember, once painted an angel. Do you know the limerick about the old man of Khartoum?”

“He kept two black sheep in his room. They remind me (he said) Of two friends who are dead. But I cannot remember of whom.”

“If that reminds you of anybody you know, I don’t care much for your friends. I never saw an uglier mug.”