Like many fathers in his rank of life, the Earl of Emsworth had suffered much through that problem which, with the exception of Mr Lloyd-George, is practically the only fly in the British aristocratic amber — the problem of What To Do With The Younger Sons.

Chapter 2

. . . your Senior Conservative, when at lunch, has little leisure for observing anything not immediately on the table in front of him. To attract attention in the dining-room of the Senior Conservative Club between the hours of one and two-thirty, you have to be a mutton-chop, not an earl.

Chapter 3

In English trains the tipping classes travel first; valets, lady's maids, footmen, nurses, and head stillroom maids, second; and housemaids, grooms, and minor and inferior stillroom maids, third. But for these social distinctions, the whole fabric of society, would collapse and anarchy stalk naked through the land — as in the United States.

Chapter 5

Butlers as a class seem to grow less and less like anything human in proportion to the magnificence of their surroundings. . . Blandings Castle was one of the more important of England's show places, and Beach accordingly had acquired a dignified inertia that almost qualified him for inclusion in the vegetable kingdom.

Chapter 5

One of the King Georges of England — I forget which — once said that a certain number of hours' sleep each night — I cannot recall at the moment how many — made a man something, which for the time being has slipped my memory. Baxter agreed with him.

Chapter 7

In English country towns, if the public houses do not actually outnumber the inhabitants, they all do an excellent trade. It is only when they are two to one that hard times hit them and set the innkeepers to blaming the government.

Chapter 7

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