Ice in the Bedroom by P. G. Wodehouse

"Toodle-oo'”.’
    'Toodle-oo, then. Nice to have met you. Keep your chin up and don't arrest any wooden nickels,' said Dolly, and Cousin George went on his way, his manner a little pensive. He was thinking that Freddie, though unquestionably a picker as far as looks were concerned, had some odd friends. Charming girl, of course, his late companion, and one of whom he would willingly have seen more, but definitely not the sort you brought home and introduced to mother.
    As for Dolly, she remained where she was for some moments, still a little unstrung, as always after she had been talking to policemen. Then, having shaken off most of the ill effects of the recent encounter, she hurried down the road and received further evidence that this was not, as she had at one time supposed, her lucky day. In the Castlewood front garden there was a gate similar to that of Peacehaven. On this Mr. Cornelius was leaning with folded arms and the general appearance of one who planned to be there for some considerable time. Courteous as always to tenants, even when ex, he greeted her with a friendly waggle of his white beard, seeming much more pleased to see her than she was to see him. Of Thomas G. Molloy, as we have seen, he disapproved, but he had always admired Dolly.
    'Why, good morning, Mrs. Molloy. It is a long time since we met. Mr. Molloy told me that you had been away.'
    ‘Yay, visiting friends,’ said Dolly, though feeling that it was stretching the facts a little to apply this term to the authorities of Holloway gaol. 'Quite a surprise it was to me when Soapy said he'd left Castlewood.'
    'To me, also, when he told me he was leaving.'
    'Well, that's how it goes. With all those big business interests of his he found he had to be nearer the centre of things.'
    'I quite understand. Business must always come first.'
    'Kind of a wrench, of course, it was to him, having to move from Valley Fields.'
    'I am not surprised. I am sure it was. There is no place like it. When I think of Valley Fields, Mrs. Molloy, I am reminded of the words of Sir Walter Scott. I daresay you know them. They occur in his poem "The Lay Of The Last Minstrel", where he says: "Breathes there the man with soul so dead, who never to himself has said This is my Own, my native land! Whose heart has ne'er within him burned, as home his footsteps he hath turned, from wandering on some foreign strand," ' said Mr. Cornelius, thinking of the day trip he had once taken to Boulogne.
    Reduced to the status of a captive audience, Dolly found her already pronounced impatience increasing. Mr. Cornelius had recited this well-known passage to her soon after her arrival in Valley Fields, and she knew that, unless he was nipped in the bud, there was a lot more of it to come.
    'Yay,' she said. 'No argument about that. But what I came about---‘
    ' "If such there breathe,"' proceeded the house agent smoothly,' "go mark him well. For him no minstrel raptures swell. High though his titles, proud his name, boundless his wealth as wish can claim, despite those titles, power and pelf---‘
    'What I came about---‘
    ‘ "The wretch, concentred all on self, living shall forfeit
fair renown, and doubly dying shall go down to the vile dust
from whence he sprung---" '
    'I just wanted---'
    ' "Unwept, unhonoured and unsung,"' concluded Mr. Cornelius severely, putting the anonymous outcast right in his place. 'Those words, Mrs. Molloy, will appear on the title page of the history of Valley Fields which I am compiling.'
    'Yes, so you told me, couple of months ago.'
    'It will be printed at my own expense and circulated privately. I thought of a binding in limp leather, possibly blue.'
    'Sounds swell. Put me down for a copy.'
    'Thank you. I shall be delighted. It will not be completed, of course, for some years. The subject is too vast.'
    'I can wait. Say, listen. What I came about was that lucky pig of mine.'
    'That…I beg your pardon?'
    'Little silver ninctobinkus I wear on my bracelet. I've lost