It is not often given to a footman to electrify his employer's family as if he had touched off a bomb under their noses. The duties of the junior servants in English country houses selfdom afford scope for such a feat. In the whole of England that day, Charles was probably the only youth of his rank who with a single speech had caused a baronet to bite his tongue, a baronet's lady to come within an ace of heart-failure, and the second son of an earl to drop his monocle - all simultaneously,. And the ironic part of it was that the record-breaker had no notion of the sensational deed he had performed; for, after the first involuntary reaction, the members of the Council had recovered their British poise and were themselves again.
- P.G. Wodehouse, If I Were You, p.67
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