There is a very, very elusive bit of song lyric quoted in chapter 10.3 of Wodehouse's novel Frozen Assets (1964): "By the time Henry returned, fully clad and looking, as the song has it, like a specimen of the dressy men you meet up west," and again in chapter 2.3 of The Girl in Blue (1970): "it was apparently her aim to convert him into what a songwriter earlier in the century once described as a specimen of the dressy men you meet up West."
N. Murphy in A Wodehouse Handbook suggested that Wodehouse had in mind Burlington Bertie from Bow (1915) by William Hargreaves (see annotations to The Girl in Blue). But this is a well-known song, and its lyrics, which can be read in Wikipedia, do not really match the quotation.
Murphy's date is more or less correct, however. The song was recalled occasionally by a few writers during the 20th century, who provide more lyrics. F. Beckett, for example, in his biography of John Beckett (1894-1964) says that his father remembered and sang music-hall songs from his youth, "not just the ones everyone remembers" (and he cites Burlington Bertie from Bow), "but also long-forgotten ditties":
We're Cholly and Dolly
We're two of the best.
We are specimen of the dressy men
You meet up west.
And when in the morning down Bond Street we trot
Every Molly and Polly
Says "Golly, how jolly.
It's Cholly and Dolly. What what?"
A slightly different version is quoted by O. Sitwell in his novel Miracle on Sinai (1933), where it is called "a song which had been popular a year or two before the War":
Cholly and Dolly
Are two of the best.
They are a specimen of the dressy men
You meet out West:
And in the morning
When down Bond Street they trot,
Every Polly and Molly cries "Golly, how jolly,
Here's Cholly and Dolly; what, what!"
Wodehouse's version is closer to the first, with "up west" instead of "out west."
[By the way, I suspect that Wodehouse made a more veiled allusion to the last lines in the phrase "Golly, Polly, isn't this jolly, here we all are, what?" in chapter 9 of Uncle Fred in the Springtime (1939).]
An article on "Lyric-Making" in The Globe for November 2, 1915 testifies to the early rise of the song to the rank of a classic: "It is but seldom that the lyric-writer is allowed to wander into trisyllabic paths, as in the deathless couplet: 'I am specimen of the dressy men,' which delighted musical comedy audiences some few years ago."
Now, in 1913-4 there existed a short-lived but very popular variety duo composed by Guy Struthers and Guy Grahame, known as "Guy and Grahame" or "The Two Johnnies." Their most successful act was called "Cholly, M.P., and Dolly, M.P." A review in The Era for January 14, 1914 reads: "Guy and Grahame, the imperturbable Bond-street Johnnies, with some new repartee that never misses fire, give their unique and amusing interlude with the happiest results": note the mention of Bond Street in the lyrics. Putting these scanty data together, I venture to say that the lost song belonged in fact to that number, perhaps used as an introduction of the two comical Members of Parliament.
[I should also mention that "Cholly" and "Dolly" are also the nicknames of Charles Lomax and Adolphus Cusins in Bernard Shaw's 1905 play Major Barbara, but this doesn't seem to be related, except perhaps as inspiration for the names of Guy and Grahame's characters.]
The duo are completely forgotten now, and there seems to be so little information preserved about them that I thought I'd put together here all I have been able to find. From a series of short but uniformly positive contemporary notices we learn that they had teamed up in late 1912 and were a permanent hit until the war broke out. (A paragraph in The Era, June 28, 1913 mentions "the case of Dawson v. Struthers, in which Mr. Guy Struthers, of Guy and Graham, was sued for £30 in respect of an alleged breach of contract by a former partner," so maybe this was not Struthers' first theatrical experience.)
Then Struthers enlisted in 1914. In his "Variety Gossip" column (The Era, November 11, 1914), "The Pilgrim" writes:
I have had some interesting news from Lieut. Guy Struthers (of Guy and Graham), who was with the Marines and Naval Brigade at Antwerp. He tells me that the force was well equipped, and delayed the German occupation of the town long enough to enable the Belgian Army to get clear to Ostend.
He was under shell and rifle fire for two days in the trenches, but managed to escape injury. Luckily, the German shooting was most inaccurate, especially their rifle fire. He hopes to return to the halls as soon as the war is over.
But his luck did not hold. In The Stage Year Book for 1916 we read: "The Harvester of Death has been very busy during 1915, and many well-known names are in the list of those who have begun the great adventure. [...] Lieut. Guy Struthers (one of the partners in Guy and Graham) died in London from the effect of wounds received in the Dardanelles." A medal that came up for auction in 2011 gives more details: "Lieutenant Guy Struthers Perkins of Royal Marine Light Infantry, Deal Bn., R.N. Div. died on 23rd November 1915 and is buried in Camberwell Old Cemetery." This in turn leads to his page in Find a Grave, where we find that he was born in 1885 and married in 1909 among other details, but nothing about his career on the stage.
I don't know if or when Guy Grahame enlisted, but in any case he survived to have a career in musical comedy. The Era for May 21, 1919 says:
That clever comedian, Guy Graham, was in town recently, following his engagement in "Ocean Waves." Our readers will recall the brilliant double act of Guy and Grahame, and that Lieut. Guy Struthers made the great sacrifice early in the war. Mr. Graham is seeking another partner for his appearance in variety, when we are promised a show somewhat different from the former act. We understand that Mr. Graham will next be seen in "Mr. Manhattan," which starts at Southampton on June 30.
Some shows where we hear his name accompanied by particularly high praise are "Oh, Joy!" (1919), "It's All Wrong" (1921), "Bluff" (1921) and "Humor and Skills" (1928).
* * *
This, then, is all I have managed to collect about the song and its (probable) authors. Perhaps there is more out there, but the fact that the song hasn't turned up in a search through several music sheet databases suggests that it was never published, and may be permanently lost.
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