unearths some literary gems.
Snippets from stories by Noel Coward:
***[from "Traveler's Joy"]
He was no fool, he often told himself, none of that painful mutton-dressed-as-lamb business for him! Why, he had voluntarily given up playing Juveniles years ago when he was a bare forty-five.
***
[from "What Mad Pursuit?"]
"What's bred in the bone comes out in the what have you."
"I'd rather listen to Irene than Jeritza, Ponselle and Flagstad all together in a lump." Evan, repressing a shudder at the thought of Jeritza, Ponselle and Flagstad all together in a lump, agreed wholeheartedly.
[Bonus 1: There's a character in this story whose conversational tic is to say "who shall be nameless," sometimes immediately *after* having already named the person he's speaking about (e.g., "Bonwit, who shall be nameless, got so fried...;" "that's Dwight Macadoo who shall be nameless"). Eventually, we see that this habit extends beyond actual persons: "a cowboy in Arizona...rounding up all those Goddamned steers--who shall be nameless."]
[Bonus 2: Enter a pair of Alsatian dogs named Chico and Zeppo. So just when you expect Harpo, Coward zags (or zeps) on us!]
***
[from "Stop Me If You've Heard It]
"Please, God," she whispered to herself. "Don't let it be the one about the Englishman and the Scotsman and the American in the railway carriage, nor the one about the old lady and the parrot...."
***
[from "Star Quality"]
The clock on the mantelpiece struck five very quickly, as though it were in a hurry.
"She's as merry as a cartload of grigs, whatever they may be."
***
[from "Bon Voyage"]
"More than one rhetorical question in one sentence always bewilders me," said Eldrich.
"Dio mio! As my old grandmother used to say."
"Mine always said 'Madonna mia.'"
[...]
"Ciao for now, as my other old grandmother used to say."
[Bonus: a character called Mrs. Bagel]
***
Bonus fictitious(?) theatrical show titles from across the story collection:
And So What
Some Take It Straight
Dear Yesterday
Wise Man's Folly
