Lord Peter, escaping from the thraldom of British good form, expressed himself in that language in which sympathy is not condemned to mutism
"Then why can't I remember all the medical stuff? It all goes out of my head like a sieve."
He had a truly terrible manservant—the sort you read about in books—who froze the marrow in your bones with silent criticism.
Mr. Parker, a faithful though doubting Thomas
"Hurray!" said Lord Peter, suddenly sparkling. "I'm glad I've puzzled Parker. Gives me confidence in myself. Makes me feel like Sherlock Holmes. 'Perfectly simple, Watson.'
(I could believe that, your lordship. Cummings has no signs of greatness about him, and his trousers are not what I would wish to see in a man of his profession.)
The Duke eyed him doubtfully.
"Hope to goodness you don't go and marry a chorus beauty," he muttered inwardly, and returned to the Times.
I invited Cummings to drinks and a cigar in the flat. Your lordship will excuse me doing this, knowing that it is not my habit, but it has always been my experience that the best way to gain a man's confidence is to let him suppose that one takes advantage of one's employer.
My Lord:
I write (Mr. Bunter had been carefully educated and knew that nothing is more vulgar than a careful avoidance of beginning a letter with the first person singular) as your lordship directed, to inform you of the result of my investigations.
His brother was there, dozing over the Times—a good, clean Englishman, sturdy and conventional, rather like Henry VIII in his youth; Gerald, sixteenth Duke of Denver.
