*    *    *    *    *

"And a rousing toodle-oo to you, you young blot on the landscape,"
she replied cordially.

*    *    *    *    *

...I merely shrugged a couple of shoulders.

*    *    *    *    *

I started violently, as if some unseen hand had goosed me.

*    *    *    *    *

I was amazed. It seemed incredible to me that anyone who had done
time at Malvern House, Bramley-on-Sea, could chuckle, softly or
otherwise, when letting the mind dwell on that outstanding menace.

*    *    *    *    *

If in addition to these two heavies I was also to be cheek by jowl
with a New York playboy apparently afflicted with bats in the belfry,
it began to look as if this visit would prove too much for Bertram's
frail strength, and for an instant I toyed with the idea of sending
a telegram of regret and oiling out. Then I remembered Anatole's
cooking and was strong again.

*    *    *    *    *

Well, as I was saying, I had several times when under the influence
of her oomph taken up with Roberta Wickham...

*    *    *    *    *

...I mean to say, when a girl, offered a good man's heart, laughs like
a bursting paper bag and tells him not to be a silly ass, the good man
is entitled, I think, to assume that the whole thing is off.

*    *    *    *    *

One learns, as one goes through life, to spot goofiness in the other sex
with an unerring eye, and this exhibit had a sort of mild, Soul's Awakening
kind of expression which made it abundantly clear that, while not a
supergoof like some of the female goofs I'd met, she was quite goofy
enough to be going on with. Her whole aspect was that of a girl
who at the drop of a hat would start talking baby talk.

*    *    *    *    *

"Suppose your Aunt Dahlia read in the paper one morning that you were
going to be shot at sunrise."
"I couldn't be, I'm never up so early."

*    *    *    *    *

I number several authors among my acquaintance - the name Boko Fittleworth
is one that springs to mind - and they invariably become all of a doodah
when they read a stinker in the press about their latest effort.

*    *    *    *    *

And ever since I've known him, failure to get his hooks on any stray cash
that's floating around has always put him out of touch with the bluebird.
It isn't that he's mercenary; it's just that he loves the stuff.

*    *    *    *    *

It just showed once again that half the world doesn't know how
the other three quarters live.

*    *    *    *    *

"Are you sure?"
I said that sure was just what I wasn't anything but.

*    *    *    *    *

At an early point in these exchanges I had started to slide
to the door, and I now sidled through it, rather like a diffident
crab on some sandy beach trying to avoid the attentions of
a child with a spade.

*    *    *    *    *

"To tell you that, whatever we do, we mustn't let this thing break our friendship."
"Of course not. Damn silly idea."
"It's such a very old friendship."
"I don't know when I've met an older."
"We were boys together."
"In Eton jackets and pimples."

*    *    *    *    *

...when I finished he t'ck-t'ck-t'cked and said it must have
been most unpleasant for me, and I said that "unpleasant"
covered the facts like the skin on a sausage.

*    *    *    *    *

She's all for not letting the sun go down without having started
something calculated to stagger humanity.

*    *    *    *    *

I didn't want to bung a spanner into her mood of bien-etre.
Never does to dash the cup of happiness from a girl's lips
when after plumbing the depths she has started to take a swig at it.

*    *    *    *    *

I'd always thought her half-baked,
but now I think they didn't even put her in the oven.

*    *    *    *    *

"When I say 'mind,' " said the blood relation, "I refer to the
quarter-teaspoonful of brain which you might possibly find
in her head if you sank an artesian well."

*    *    *    *    *

...but the glimpses I had caught of his face from the corner of the eye
had told me that he was grim and resolute, his supply of milk
and kindness plainly short by several gallons.

*    *    *    *    *