One of the Blandings books. P.G. Wodehouse is of course a genius of his own particular kind.
the sophisticated modern world has, one fears, a little lost its taste for the type of scene, so admired of an older generation, where Virtue, drawing itself up to its full height, scorns to be tempted by gold. Yet even the most hard-boiled and cynical could scarcely have failed to be thrilled had they beheld Beach now. He looked like something out of a symbolic group of statuary – Good Citizenship Refusing To Accept A Bribe From Big Business Interests In Connexion With The Contract For The New Inter-Urban Tramway System, or something of that kind.