Cocktail Talk: Whose Body?
I picked up a box set of Dorothy Sayers not long ago, a four-pack of Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries, and it’s been fun. I can’t plow through a bunch of Lord Peters in a row, due to there being a bit too much French in some of them (hah, I kid). No, no, it’s that, while I like them (and Whose Body? is my favorite of the bunch), I’m not so into them that I wanna read four in a row. You dig it. Whose Body? does start with a naked, unknown, body in a bathtub, and takes some interesting turns, so I can heartily recommend it. Especially because of the below quote, that reminds us what being gentlemanly means.
One of the young ladies came up to me and said, didn’t I dance, and I said ‘No,’ so she said wouldn’t I stand her a drink then. ‘You’ll stand us a drink then, darling,’ that was what she said, and I said, ‘Wasn’t it after hours?’ and she said that didn’t matter. So I ordered the drink – a gin and bitters it was – for I didn’t like not to, the young lady seemed to expect it of me, and I felt like it wouldn’t be gentlemanly to refuse when she asked.
–Dorothy Sayers, Whose Body?
