P. G. Wodehouse

“ Dignity is a sensitive plant which flourishes only under the fairest conditions. Sam's had perished in the bleak east wind of Billie's note. In other circumstances he might have resented this intrusion of a stranger into his most intimate concerns. His only emotion now, was one of dull but distinct gratitude. The four winds of heaven blew chilly upon his raw and unprotected soul, and he wanted to wrap it up in a mantle of sympathy, careless of the source from which he borrowed that mantle. If Webster, the valet, felt disposed, as he seemed to indicate, to comfort him, let the thing go on. ”

“ You can easily get another situation. A valuable man like you,” said Sam, ingratiatingly.
“No, sir,” said Webster firmly. “From boyhood up I've always had a regular horror of the water. I can't so much as go paddling without an uneasy feeling.”
The image of Webster paddling was arresting enough to occupy Sam's thoughts for a moment. It was an inspiring picture, and for an instant uplifted his spirits. Then they fell again.
“Well, I don't see what there is to be done,” he said, gloomily. “It's no good making suggestions, if you have some frivolous objection to all of them.” ”

“ A species of ruse, sir,—some kind of innocent deception?”
“Well, it was like this.”
It was a complicated story to tell, and Sam, a prey to conflicting emotions, told it badly; but such was the almost superhuman intelligence of Webster, that he succeeded in grasping the salient points. Indeed, he said that it reminded him of something of much the same kind in the Nosegay Novelette, “All for Her,” where the hero, anxious to win the esteem of the lady of his heart, had bribed a tramp to simulate an attack upon her in a lonely road. ”