20
" I'm in sore straits, Jeeves.'
'I am sorry to hear that, sir.'
'You'll be sorrier when I explain further. Have you ever seen a garrison besieged by howling savages, with their ammunition down to the last box of cartridges, the water supply giving our and the United States Marines nowhere in sight?'
'Not to my recollection, sir.'
'Well, my position is roughly that of such a garrison, except that compared with me they're sitting pretty. Compared with me they haven't a thing to worry about.'
'You fill me with alarm, sir.'
'I bet I do, and I haven't even started yet. I will begin by saying that Miss Cook, to whom I'm engaged, is a lady for whom I have the utmost esteem and respect, but on certain matters we do not... what's the expression?'
'See eye to eye, sir?'
'That's right. And unfortunately those matters are the what-d'you-call-it of my whole policy. What is it that policies have?'
'I think the word for which you are groping, sir, may possibly be cornerstone.'
'Thank you, Jeeves. She disapproves of a variety of things which are the cornerstone of my policy. Marriage with her must inevitably mean that I shall have to cast them from my life, for she has a will of iron and will have no difficulty in making her husband jump through hoops and snap sugar off his nose. You get what I mean?'
'I do, sir. A very colourful image.'
'Cocktails, for instance, will be barred. She says they are bad for the liver. Have you noticed, by the way, how frightfully lax everything's getting now? In Queen Victoria's day a girl would never have dreamed of mentioning livers in mixed company.'
'Very true, sir. Tempora mutanter, nos et mutamur in illis.'
'That, however, is not the worst.'
'You horrify me, sir.'
'At a pinch I could do without cocktails. It would be agony, but we Woosters can rough it. But she says I must give up smoking.'
'This was indeed the most unkindest cut of all, sir.'
'Give up smoking, Jeeves!'
'Yes, sir. You will notice that I am shuddering. "
― P.G. Wodehouse , Aunts Aren't Gentlemen (Jeeves, #15)