*    *    *    *    *

(On dedication page)
TO THE CRITICS
THESE PEARLS

*    *    *    *    *

Both uncle and nephew had the same way of narrowing their gaze
and letting you have it from beneath the overhanging eyebrow.
The only difference was that whereas the former pierced you to the
roots of the soul through the rimless pince-nez, with the latter
you got the eye nude.

*    *    *    *    *

I turned him down like a bedspread.

*    *    *    *    *

After what Uncle Tom had been saying about her tottering I didn't like
this febrile agitation.

*    *    *    *    *

It was the last contingency I had been anticipating, and it caused my heart
to leap like a salmon in the spawning season, and become entangled
with my front teeth.

*    *    *    *    *

Florence spoke with a voice that would have frozen an Eskimo.

*    *    *    *    *

I emerged like a cork out of a bottle.

*    *    *    *    *

I agreed the situation was sticky. Indeed, offhand it
was difficult to see how it could have been more glutinous.

*    *    *    *    *

Before my eyes he wilted like a wet sock.

*    *    *    *    *

And as he, too, seemed disinclined for chit-chat, we stood for
some moments like a couple of Trappist monks who have
run into each other at the dog races.

*    *    *    *    *

As she looked up on discovering me in her midst,
her face was shining like the seat of a busdriver's trousers,
and it wouldn't have surprised me much if she had started yodeling.

*    *    *    *    *

As plainly as if it had been the top line on the oculist's chart
I could see what the future held for Bertram.