A Wodehouse Miscellany | Page 3

he said:
Timson's Tonic for Distracted Deadbeats Has been known to cure We Hate to Seem to
Boast, but Many Who have Tried It Are Still Alive
* * * * *
Take a Dose or Two in Your Spare Time It's Not Bad Stuff
* * * * *

Read what an outside stockbroker says: "Sir--After three months' steady absorption of
your Tonic I was no worse."
* * * * *
We do not wish to thrust ourselves forward in any way. If you prefer other medicines, by
all means take them. Only we just thought we'd mention it--casually, as it were--that
TIMSON'S is PRETTY GOOD.
"How's that?" inquired the man of ideas. "Attractive, I fancy, without being bombastic.
Now, one about a new novel. Ready?"
MR. LUCIEN LOGROLLER'S LATEST
The Dyspepsia of the Soul The Dyspepsia of the Soul The Dyspepsia of the Soul
Don't buy it if you don't want to, but just listen to a few of the criticisms.
THE DYSPEPSIA OF THE SOUL
"Rather ... rubbish."--Spectator "We advise all insomniacs to read Mr. Logroller's
soporific pages."--Outlook "Rot."--Pelican THE DYSPEPSIA OF THE SOUL Already in
its first edition.
"What do you think of that?" asked the man of ideas.
We told him.

THE SECRET PLEASURES OF REGINALD
I found Reggie in the club one Saturday afternoon. He was reclining in a long chair,
motionless, his eyes fixed glassily on the ceiling. He frowned a little when I spoke. "You
don't seem to be doing anything," I said.
"It's not what I'm doing, it's what I am not doing that matters."
It sounded like an epigram, but epigrams are so little associated with Reggie that I
ventured to ask what he meant.
He sighed. "Ah well," he said. "I suppose the sooner I tell you, the sooner you'll go. Do
you know Bodfish?"
I shuddered. "Wilkinson Bodfish? I do."
"Have you ever spent a weekend at Bodfish's place in the country?"
I shuddered again. "I have."
"Well, I'm not spending the weekend at Bodfish's place in the country."
"I see you're not. But----"
"You don't understand. I do not mean that I am simply absent from Bodfish's place in the
country. I mean that I am deliberately not spending the weekend there. When you
interrupted me just now, I was not strolling down to Bodfish's garage, listening to his
prattle about his new car."
I glanced around uneasily.
"Reggie, old man, you're--you're not--This hot weather----"
"I am perfectly well, and in possession of all my faculties. Now tell me. Can you imagine
anything more awful than to spend a weekend with Bodfish?"
On the spur of the moment I could not.
"Can you imagine anything more delightful, then, than not spending a weekend with
Bodfish? Well, that's what I'm doing now. Soon, when you have gone--if you have any
other engagements, please don't let me keep you--I shall not go into the house and not
listen to Mrs. Bodfish on the subject of young Willie Bodfish's premature intelligence."
I got his true meaning. "I see. You mean that you will be thanking your stars that you

aren't with Bodfish."
"That is it, put crudely. But I go further. I don't indulge in a mere momentary
self-congratulation, I do the thing thoroughly. If I were weekending at Bodfish's, I should
have arrived there just half an hour ago. I therefore selected that moment for beginning
not to weekend with Bodfish. I settled myself in this chair and I did not have my back
slapped at the station. A few minutes later I was not whirling along the country roads,
trying to balance the car with my legs and an elbow. Time passed, and I was not shaking
hands with Mrs. Bodfish. I have just had the most corking half-hour, and shortly--when
you have remembered an appointment--I shall go on having it. What I am really looking
forward to is the happy time after dinner. I shall pass it in not playing bridge with Bodfish,
Mrs. Bodfish, and a neighbor. Sunday morning is the best part of the whole weekend,
though. That is when I shall most enjoy myself. Do you know a man named Pringle?
Next Saturday I am not going to stay with Pringle. I forget who is not to be my host the
Saturday after that. I have so many engagements of this kind that I lose track of them."
"But, Reggie, this is genius. You have hit on the greatest idea of the age. You might
extend this system of yours."
"I do. Some of the jolliest evenings I have spent have been not at the theatre."
"I have often wondered what it was that made you look so fit and happy."
"Yes. These little non-visits of mine pick me up and put life into