From: lrellick@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Lorraine M Rellick)
Subject: Percy Gorringe an the roast beef poem...
Keywords: roast beef
Organization: You've got to be kidding
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 12:34:40 GMT

"That was Percy," said Aunt Dahlia.  I replied that I had divined as
much.  "Did you notice how he looked when he said 'Florence'?
Like a dying duck in a thunderstorm."  "And did you notice," I
inquired in my turn, "how he looked when you said 'Bertie Wooster'?
Like someone finding a dead mouse in his pint of beer.  Not a
bonhomous bird.  Not my type.'  "No.  You would scarcely suppose that
even a mother could view him without nausea, would you?

A few lines later.....

If it hadn't been for the whiskers, I don't believe I would have
recognized him.  It was only about ten minutes since he had shoved
his face in at the door of Aunt Dahlia's lair, but in that brief
interval his whole aspect had changed.  No longer the downcast duck in
a thunderstorm from whom I had so recently parted, he had become gay
and bobbish.  His air was jaunty, his smile bright, and there was in his
demeanour more than a suggestion of a man who might at any moment break
into a tap dance.  It was as if he had spent a considerable time
watching that trick of Freddie Widgeon's with the two corks and the
bit of string.
  "Hullo there, Wooster," he cried buoyantly, and you would have
supposed that finding Bertram in his midst had just about made his day.
"Taking a stroll, eh?"
  I said Yes I was taking a stroll, and he beamed as though feeling
thata I could have pursued no wiser and more admirable course.
'Sensible chap, Wooster,' he seemed to be saying.  'He takes strolls.'
  There was a short intermission here, duing which he looked at me
lovingly and slid hes feet about a bit in the manner of one trying out
dance steps.  Then he said it was a beautiful evening, and I endorsed this.
  "The sunset," he said, indicating it.
  "Very fruity," I agreed, for the whole horizon was aflame with
glorious technicolor.
  "Seeing it," he said, "I am reminded of a poem I wrote the other day
for "Parnassus".  Just a little thing I dashed off.  You might care to
hear it."
  "Oh, rather."
  "It's called 'Caliban At Sunset'."
  "What at sunset?"
  "Caliban."
  He cleared his throat, and began:
I stood with a man
Watching the sun go down.
Thie air was full of murmurous summer scents
And a brave breeze sang like a bugle
From a sky that smouldered in the west,
A sky of crimson, amethyst and gold and  sepia
And blue as blue as were the eyes of Helen
When she sat
Gazing from some high tower in Ilium
Upon the Grecian tents darkling below.
And he,
This man who stood beside me,
Gaped like some dull, half-witted animal
And said,
'I say,
Doesn't that sunset remind you
Of a slice
Of underdone roast beef?

He opened his eyes, which he had closed in order to render the
morceau more effectively.
  "Bitter of course."
  "Oh, frightfully bitter."
  "I was feeling bitter when I wrote it.  I think you know a man
named Cheesewright.  It was he I had in mind.  Actually, we had never
stood wwatching a sunset together, but I felt it was just the sort
of thing he would have said if he had been watching a sunset, if you
see what I mean.  Am I right?"
  "Quite right."
  "A souless clod, don't you think?"