P. G. Wodehouse

“ I said, finishing the coffee.
"In a deferential postscript," said Julian, "Skeffington's suggest an alternative ending, that the wife should drink, not laudanum, but Sloe Gin, and grow, under its benign influence, resigned to the fate she has brought on her husband and herself. Resignation gives way to hope. She devotes her life to the care of the inebriate man, and, by way of pathetic retribution, she lives precisely long enough to nurse him back to sanity. ”

“ I said.
"Thank you," said Julian, considerably gratified. "So do I. It's terser, more dramatic, and altogether a better advertisement. Skeffington's make jolly good sloe gin, but they can't arouse pity and terror. Yes, I'll do it; but first let me spend the tenner."
"I'm taking a holiday, too, today," I said. "How can we amuse ourselves?"
Julian had opened the last of his letters. He held up two cards.
"Tickets for Covent Garden Ball tonight," he said. "Why not come? It's sure to be a good one." ”

“ I was to dress for Covent Garden at Julian's after the theatre, because white waistcoats and the franc table d'hôte didn't go well together.
When I dined out, I usually went to the Maison Suisse. I shall never have the chance of going again, even if, as a married man, I were allowed to do so, for it has been pulled down to make room for the Hicks Theatre in Shaftesbury Avenue. When I did not dine there, I attended a quaint survival of last century's coffee-houses in Glasshouse Street: Tall, pew-like boxes, wooden tables without table-cloths, panelled walls ”

“ In Act 3 the husband is seen sitting alone in his study. His wife has gone to a party. The man searches in a cupboard for something to read. Instead of a novel, however, he lights on a bottle of Skeffington's Sloe Gin. Instantly the old overwhelming craving returns. ”