Alaric Pendlebury-Davenport, Duke of Dunstable, was at Eton
and Cambridge. A large, stout, bald-headed man with an
unpleasantly loud voice, jutting nose, prominent eyes and a
bushy white moustache of the type favored by regimental
sergeant majors and walruses, which he is always blowing at,
causing it to leap like a rocketing pheasant. Large
outstanding ears like those on a Greek amphora. Uninvited
guest at Blandings in Uncle Fred in the Springtime,
Service With a Smile,
A Pelican at Blandings. An opinionated,
arbitrary, autocratic resident of Wiltshire, where his standing
among his neighbors is roughly that of a shark at a bathing
resort; considers everybody he encounters to be "potty."
Uncle to Horace Pendlebury-Davenport, Ricky Gilpin, and
Linda Gilpin, his court-appointed ward in A Pelican at Blandings.
In Uncle Fred in the Springtime
displays tendency to destroy rooms with a poker when angry.
Nervous of fire; invites himself to Blandings in A Pelican at Blandings
following a fire at his Wiltshire house. A onetime suitor of
Constance Keeble, who continues to show a certain fond
tolerance of him (Alaric ended their engagement because her
father refused to meet his terms in the matter of a dowry).
Once tried to get himself elected to the old Pelican Club,
was heavily blackballed. Long a widower, once married to a
rich girl who was the daughter of one of those rich chaps up
North who make cups and basins and things; her death left
him twice a millionaire but always on the lookout to become
richer.
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