OK. Serious shaggy dog story joke time…:groucho::groucho::groucho:
Late one night, Lord Hadlington Smythe of the Gable house, Upper Snobsbury was awoken by the sound of somebody clattering about the downstairs of his fine manor.
Immediately, being a man of action, he snatched up his shotgun, threw on his dressing gown, and stole downstairs with the natural ability he had shown while hunting wildebeest on the Seringety plains.
There was a light flickering in his library, so he snuk stealthily in, shotgun at the ready. Seeing a figure amongst the shelves, he moved round, until he had a clear shot, and said in a loud voice:
“Hold it right there. Hands up!”
The figure dropped the book it was holding, and turned to face him, hands in the air.
“Jeeves!!”, exclaimed a startled Lord Smythe. “What the bloody hell are you doing?”
“Well sir, it’s a bit embarassing”, said his butler, the elderly Jeeves. “I’m looking up a phrase I heard this afternoon, as I didn’t want to ask anybody what it meant, for fear of looking silly.”
“Mission failed I’m afraid Jeeves”, replied Lord Smythe. “You look very silly now. So what was the phrase, and have you had any luck finding it’s meaning?”
“Afraid not Sir. It seems to be rather an obscure one. The phrase I heard was ‘Fox Paw’ sir.”
“Fox Paw…Fox Paw…?” Lord Smythe repeated to himself thinking.
Then he said, “Oh, you mean Faux Pas?”
“Yes sir, He did say it with a bit of an accent. But I thought it was just his natural turn of phrase. It was Viscount Snodgrass you know, and he pronounces ‘House’ to rhyme with ‘mice’, so I thought it must be pronounced ‘fox paw’.”
“So do you know what it means sir?”
“Oh yes… Let me think of an example for you….”
“Ah…You remember yesterday, when we had that small dinner party, and my Daughter, and Son in law were over?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you remember he had hurt his finger while admiring the huge Rose that the gardener is so fond of?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well then, you will definetly remember when we were at dinner, and my Daughter turned to Him, and said:
“How’s the prick?” and he said:
“Still throbbing”, and you said:
“F*ck me”, and dropped the custard. That Jeeves is a Faux Pas…
