6. Orang, sir?
(With apologies to P.G. Wodehouse)
(The Scene: the steps of Berkeley Mansions, the country seat of the Woosters. Bertie and Jeeves are inspecting a large animal crate that has just been anonymously delivered.)
Jeeves: Orang, sir?
Bertie: Well, it certainly isn’t Lord Ickenham’s nephew!
Jeeves: Pongo? No, sir. However, by a curious coincidence
It is named ‘Pongo pygmaeus’; and I attribute the delivery
Of the all-too-human individual to Berkeley Mansions
To a pointed remark by big-hearted Uncle Freddie
That Pongo’s the man to imbue a jackanapes
With the chastening humility of knowing his descent from apes.
Bertie: I prefer his impersonations to biological muck-raking. Rather!
And I’m darned if I’ll believe that Pongo here is my grandfather!
Jeeves: Grand-uncle, sir, descending with you from his forerunner
In the Eocene, a prosimian stock that resembled a lemur.
But the gradual phasing of characters that the finches recite
Isn’t helped by Darwin’s demand for them to re-write
Gene codes at every bound ¹, while mutations are charmingly
Illiterate in their disconnected effects and could botch alarmingly.²
Bertie: I’m sorry, Jeeves, you’ve lost me...