PG Wodehouse Variations

It takes a saintly temperament—something on the order of Little Lord Fauntleroy on a good day—not to feel a certain fraying of the nerves when, after sprinting down the pavement like an antelope pursued by creditors, one finds the omnibus wallah rattling the door to with a clang precisely at the moment one’s nose draws level with the step. Linda, being no such saint and possessing a nose every bit as sensitive as the next girl’s, experienced a thunderclap of indignation that would have made even Aunt Agatha take a step back.

Linda was positively incandescent with rage, don’t you know. There she was, pelting along at a rate of knots, limbs flailing like a startled octopus, in a desperate bid to intercept the omnibus before it trundled off into the sunset. And what does the blighter at the wheel do? Why, he jolly well slams the door shut right in her face, leaving her to stew on the pavement with nothing but a bruised dignity and a distinct shortage of breath. The effrontery of the man! If looks could kill, that bus driver would have been reduced to a small, apologetic heap of ash on the spot.

Of course. Here is that unfortunate incident, rendered in the style of the master:

***

A casual observer, noting the thundercloud that had gathered upon Linda’s brow, might have deduced that she was not entirely chuffed. Indeed, to say she was 'a bit peeved' would be to skirt the very fringes of understatement. The milk of human kindness in her soul had, to put it plainly, curdled.

For she had, a moment before, been putting in a spell of leg-work that would have done credit to a fleet-footed gazelle with a pressing appointment. The object of this athletic display was a lumbering, scarlet-hued omnibus. And just as victory was within her grasp, the man at the helm—a morose-looking specimen who appeared to view the human race with a deep and abiding distaste—chose that precise moment to operate the door-closing mechanism.

He did so with a brisk, malevolent finality, leaving our heroine marooned upon the pavement, breathing like a grampus and radiating a silent fury that would have wilted a stronger man at twenty paces.

Linda's sensibilities were in tumult. She had performed, in quick succession, feats of athleticism not mandated by the laws of polite society—hurtling down pavements with the vim of a greyhound in pursuit of a particularly evasive rabbit—and was just about to throw herself heroically into the sanctum of Omnibus No. 37 when the driver, that cold-blooded custodian of public transport, slammed the portal shut with a finality reminiscent of the Iron Maiden. If sparks did not actually emanate from Linda’s ears, it was only because she had expended them all in her sprint.

**In the style of P.G. Wodehouse:**  

Linda, it must be confessed, was in a state of some considerable irritation—a fury, indeed, of a sort usually observed only in wronged badgers or London taxi drivers denied their accustomed parking spot. She had been running with the desperate alacrity of a chorus girl late for rehearsals at the Alhambra, her hat perched precariously above a face flushed a becoming shade of peony pink. The bus, however, a lumbering vehicle of questionable character and a pronounced inclination toward mischief, had come to a halt with all the courtesy of a grumpy goat and none of the charm.  

Her boots—a sturdy pair of brogues, now reduced to a state bordering on rebellion—struck the pavement in a frantic staccato as she closed the distance, only for the wretched driver, an obstreperous fellow with a mustache like a disapproving caterpillar, to slam the door shut with a *whump* that might have echoed in Westminster Abbey.  

“It’s *cruelty*,” Linda spluttered aloud, addressing the streetlamp nearest at hand, as one does when the universe has conspired against one’s best stockings. “A *scandal*! Sir!”—this last barked in the general direction of the driver’s retreating silhouette—“you’ll meet your comeuppance in the next life, mark my words!”  

The bus, with the insolence of a seasoned bounder, puttered off into the distance, leaving Linda to brood in the melancholy knowledge that even public conveyances had turned against her—a young woman who, only that very morning, had paid her sixpence for a bun at the corner bakery. Fate, it seemed, was a mischievous blighter with a grudge.

Linda, I rather fancy, was in something of a dudgeon. She was legging it like the dickens to intercept a dash-blasted omnibus, when the blighter at the wheel did the most confounded thing – he slammed the bally door right in her face. I mean to say, what?

Certainly! Here’s your text rewritten in the style of P.G. Wodehouse:  

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Linda was, as the expression goes, *seeing red*. Not the gentle, rosy hue of a summer sunset, mind you, but the full, volcanic crimson of a woman scorned by the public transport system. There she was, legs pumping like a well-oiled piston, arms flailing with the grace of a windmill in a gale, giving it her all in the noble pursuit of the 4:15 to Pimlico. And what did she get for her troubles? The bus driver—a chap who, by the look of him, had been weaned on a pickle—snapped the doors shut with the cold finality of a banker refusing a loan.  

One could almost hear the universe chuckling at the sheer injustice of it all.  

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Hope that captures the Wodehouse spirit! Let me know if you'd like any tweaks.

The scoundrel! Linda, a vision of loveliness, was making a spirited dash for the omnibus, her dainty feet pattering against the pavement with a rapidity that would have put a sprinter to shame, when that boundless bounder of a bus driver, with a heart as hard as the stone flags beneath her feet, slammed the door shut with a resounding crash, leaving her to gaze longingly after the departing vehicle, her countenance a picture of righteous indignation.

What ho! It must be recorded that Linda was in what one might generously describe as a towering bate. The poor girl had been legging it along the thoroughfare with all the determination of a Derby winner approaching the final furlong, her objective being to apprehend a passing omnibus before it departed for points unknown. Picture, if you will, the scene: Linda, puffing like a grampus, arrives at the precise moment when the vehicular conveyance might reasonably be expected to pause for the collection of passengers. 

But did it, by Jove? It did not! The driver, a man evidently possessed of all the milk of human kindness one might expect to find in a particularly vindictive cobra, chose that very instant to slam the portal of his mechanical steed shut with a bang that would have done credit to the Last Trump. And there was our Linda, left standing on the kerb like a bride at the altar whose intended has suddenly remembered a pressing engagement elsewhere.

One can readily imagine that her thoughts regarding the bus driver at that moment were not of the sort that would have found favour in the better drawing-rooms.