The Little Warrior
1920
It's 1920, and Derek Underhill has a problem. He's engaged to the delightful Jill Mariner, but there's one obstacle standing between him and marital bliss: his mother. Lady Underhill is a formidable force, a matriarch who has strong opinions about appropriate matches and zero intention of being ignored. As Derek works up the courage to introduce his fiancée, his friend Freddie Rooke does his best to provide moral support, usually while recovering from the previous night's excesses. Wodehouse, in his early prime, mines comedy from the universal terror of parental disapproval, the absurd theater of upper-class courtship, and the particular anxiety of introducing someone you love to someone who might ruin everything. The humor lands through sharp dialogue, social embarrassment, and the gentle absurdities of people who have far more money than sense. It's a lighter Wodehouse than the later masterpieces, but the characteristic wit is already very much present.
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“This woman always made Freddie feel as if he were being disemboweled by some clumsy amateur.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“No wonder Freddie experienced the sort of abysmal soul-sadness which afflicts one of Tolstoi's Russian peasants when, after putting in a heavy day's work strangling his father, beating his wife, and dropping the baby into the city reservoir, he turns to the cupboard, only to find the vodka bottle empty.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“A little," panted Mrs. Peagrim, who, though she danced often and vigorously, was never in the best of condition, owing to her habit of neutralizing the beneficent effects of exercise by surreptitious candy-eating. "I'm a little out of breath.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“If it is bad to be all dressed up and no place to go, it is almost worse to be full of talk and to have no one to talk it to.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“She was a shrewd woman, and knew that the art of life is to know when to stop talking. What words have accomplished, too many words can undo.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“This woman always made Freddie feel as if he were being disembowelled by some clumsy amateur.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“The train began to give up its contents, now in ones and twos, now in a steady stream.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“I suppose the cave-woman sometimes felt rather relieved when everything was settled for her with a club, but I'm sure the caveman must have had a hard time ridding himself of the thought that he had behaved like a cad and taken a mean advantage.””
— P. G. Wodehouse
“Marriage isn't a motion-picture close-up with slow fade-out on the embrace. It's a partnership, and what's the good of a partnership if your heart's not in it? It's like collaborating with a man you dislike....””
— P. G. Wodehouse
