A Peach from Plum

Everybody has safe-haven books or writers - the ones you turn to when there's too much grayness in the world, or when you just feel the need of a treat.  I'm lucky enough to have someone as prolific PG Wodehouse (aka Plum) as one of mine.  Re-reading his books is a delight but I also keep stumbling over ones I've never read before - Big Money, written in 1931, for example.  I've only started but already I feel better!  And to share just a bit of the pleasure, I give you this brief essay into the world of beards ... 

"The bearded man was now eating some sort of fish with sauce on it.  And Berry, watching him intently, became gripped by a suspicion that grew stronger each moment.  That beard, he could swear, was a false one.  It was so evidently hampering its proprietor.  He was pushing bits of fish through it in the cautious manner of an explorer blazing a trail through a strong forest.  In short, instead of being a man afflicted by nature with a beard, and as such more to be pitied than censured, he was a deliberate putter-on of beards, a self-bearder, a fellow who, for who knew what dark reasons, carried his own private jungle around with him, so that any moment he could dive into it and defy pursuit.  It was childish to suppose that such a man could be up to any good."

Cheers!  Joan.