Madame Eulalie’s Rare PlumsDaily Express, July 19, 1921
SUPPLEMENTARY.
To the Editor of the “Daily Express.”
Sir,—Your Mr. Mais’ complaint re quality of goods to hand and contents noted. Would state in reply that, in addition to our normal supply of “Old Beans” and “Old Tops,” we are now introducing a supplementary line of “Old Eggs” and “Old Crumpets” for gents’ autumn use. Trusting to give satisfaction.
P. G. WODEHOUSE.
Constitutional Club, W.C., July 18.
Notes:
Wodehouse was responding to an item titled “Comedy in the Cabinet” by S. P. B. Mais in the July 18th issue. The first two sentences of that article:
When will humorous writers learn that success in their art depends solely on the manner in which the comic situation is handled; not at all on the situation itself? Mr. P. G. Wodehouse relies on an incessant repetition of “Old Beans” and “Old Tops” which I had imagined to be phrases well lost in the limbo of the last great war but two.
For Wodehouse’s deeper explanation of Eggs, Crumpets, and Piefaces, see an interview from 1925, “Top-Hole” English, on this site.