Can you help Lord Uffenham solve the cryptic clues for which Wodehouse gave no answers?
We're approaching the end of our war with the cryptic clues in the PG Wodehouse novel Something Fishy. Like in many other Wodehouse stories, a hapless aristocrat struggles with a crossword; unusually, there is not a butler on hand to discreetly offer the solution.
Today's is the last of the six clues in Something Fishy, but we have a bonus extra question still to come.
Last time we looked at "The ointment in short has no point". It's a tricky clue to deconstruct, as it's hard to see where the wordplay ends and the definition begins.
Accordingly, our two best candidates assume that the clue defies the wordplay-plus-definition form. First suggested by Alberyalbery, we have the notion of a triple definition of BLUNT: like a pencil with no point, to be short or blunt with someone and a synonym for ointment which unfortunately is not supported by the usual dictionaries.
The front runner, first suggested by Smontagu, is NARD. Chambers tells us that "spikenard" is:
An aromatic oil or balsam yielded by an Indian valerianaceous herb (Nardostachys jatamansi; also called nard) or a synthetic substitute for this
So Wodehouse would be asking us to take a word for ointment, and shorten it by removing a spike (or point) to get a shorter word for the same ointment, "ointment" doing a kind of double duty as part of both wordplay and definition. I'm not in love with clues that really only give one route to the answer unless they raise a smile, but I'm confident in NARD. Oh, though, for a letter count.
This week, we turn to the start of chapter six: Lord Uffenham is approached by his niece Jane, who has news of Stanhope Twine's impending dinner party:
She found him in his study having difficulty with 'Tree gets mixed up with comic hat in scene of his triumphs', and for a while listened sympathetically while he spoke his mind on the subject of the smart alecks who compose crossword puzzles these days. Lord Uffenham had been brought up in the sound old tradition of the Sun God Ra and the large Australian bird Emu, and he resented all this new-fangled stuff about subordinate professionals and comic hats.
OK, let's finish on a win.
Rules
• One piece of wordplay or suggested definition at a time.
• No leaping ahead to the other clues in the story.
• Wild speculation is as welcome as precision.
• Explanations of any out-of-date abbreviations, people or vocabulary very welcome.
• Alternate answers that fit the definition and wordplay very welcome, even if obviously inaccurate.
So, one piece at a time: what might "Tree gets mixed up with comic hat in scene of his triumphs" be trying to say?