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unearths some literary gems.
From Quick Curtain, by Alan Melville:
[This one is quite the "comical mystery"!]
***
"Unfortunately she'd been rung up earlier in the morning by the Morning Herald, the Daily News, the Daily Observer, the Morning Courier, and practically everyone else except the Christian Herald and the Feathered World."
[I read the above just days after reading *this* in Milne's Happy Days: "There was I, sitting at home and sending out madly for all the papers, until my rooms were littered with copies of The Times, The Financial News, Answers, The Feathered World and Home Chat." (The joke in this case is that the protagonist is specifically looking for financial news, from any and every available source!) Btw, the Melville is from 1934, the Milne from no later than 1928 (i.e., the 1928 book collects essays previously published in Punch).]
***
"B. dies gracefully in the glare of three spotlights and to the accompaniment of an augmented orchestra, under the direction of M. René Whoever-it-was." [I didn't realize Whoever-it-was was a French name!]
***
"If you draw a little triangle--"
"Isosceles or eternal?" asked Derek, drawing several on the table-cloth with the prongs of his fork.
"Right-angled, as a matter of fact," said Mr. Wilson.
[And later on...]
"I'm beginning to think that Brandon Baker's sudden end was the result of something happening to that old geometrical figure the eternal triangle. Perhaps the square on the side opposite the hypotenuse got a bit fresh with the angle at the base of the triangle, and the sum of the other two angles didn't quite approve."
***
Brandon Baker's last performance [as the corpse at his real-life funeral] was much more brilliant than his unfortunate first London performance in the musical comedy Blue Music.
[This is part of an extended treatment of this theater-world funeral as a quasi-"show," which thus precurses Genuine Cousin of Pearl.]
***
"Surely to say that a man of over fifty was juvenile leading was--if I may so--definitely juvenile misleading?"
***
[(Presumably) Fictitious Theater Productions dept.]
"I saw him years ago at the Empire in Here's A Howdydoo!...."
[Later]
Mr. Watcyns couldn't see why Miss Sinclair should go on wasting her time and talents in a play like What Bloomers! when there was a gem of a part for her in his own Infernal Triangle.
***
"A Miss Davis, sir."
"What's she like?" asked Mr. Wilson, who always made a point of getting a pro-forma invoice where women were concerned.
***
[Art Deco style precurses the all-lowercase conventions of text-messaging.]
Mr. Wilson knew at once that [the flats] were very modern, for all the chromium-plated name-plates at the main entrance were devoid of capital letters.
***
Then the ultra-modern block of service flats was wrapped in ultra-silence.
***
While the first attack on the [door]bell had been a mere prod, this was a good, honest bit of work, reminiscent of Wagner at his most boisterous moments.
[...]
Derek rang again, this time in a musical-comedy strain....
***
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unearths some literary gems.
From If I May, by A. A. Milne:
***
He had taken her to the best restaurant in Paris and had introduced her to a bottle of the famous Chateau Whatsitsname, 1320 (or thereabouts).
***
I have a book called Chats on Old Furniture--a terrible title to have to ask for in a shop, but I asked boldly.
***
I have not yet discovered, in spite of my recent familiarity with house-agents, the difference between a fixture and a fitting. It is possible that neither word has any virtue without the other, as is the case with “spick” and “span.” One has to be both; however dapper, one would never be described as a span gentleman. In the same way it may be that a curtain-rod or an electric light is never just a fixture or a fitting, but always “included in the fixtures and fittings.”
[...]
The whole idea of a fixture or fitting can only be that it is something about which there can be no individual taste. We furnish a house according to our own private fancy; the “fixtures” are the furnishings in regard to which we are prepared to accept the general fancy. The other man’s curtain-rod, though easily detachable and able to fit a hundred other windows, is a fixture; his carpet-as-planned (to use the delightful language of the house-agent), though securely nailed down and the wrong size for any other room but this, is not a fixture. Upon some such reasoning the first authorized schedule of fixtures and fittings must have been made out.
It seems a pity that it has not been extended. There are other things than curtain-rods and electric-light bulbs which might be left behind in the old house and picked up again in the new. The silver cigarette-box, which we have all had as a birthday or wedding present, might safely be handed over to the incoming tenant, in the certainty that another just like it will be waiting for us in our next house. True, it will have different initials on it, but that will only make it the more interesting, our own having become fatiguing to us by this time.
***
“Oh!” she says.
I hate people who say “Oh!” It means that you have to begin all over again.
“I’ve been playing [golf] this afternoon,” we try. “Do you play at all?”
“No.”
Then it is no good telling her what our handicap is.
“No doubt your prefer tennis,” we hazard.
“Oh no.”
“I mean bridge.”
“I don’t play any game,” she answers.
Then the sooner she goes away and talks to somebody else the better.
“Ah, I expect you’re more interested in the theatre?”
“I hardly ever go to the theatre.”
“Well, of course, a good book by the fireside--”
“I never read,” she says.
Dash the woman, what does she do? But before we can ask her, she lets us into the great secret.
“I like talking,” she says.
Good Heavens! What else have we been trying to do all this time?
***
[And dig this! In a piece deploring the state of the theatre, Milne's hypothetical crass theatre producer "would be just as proud of a successful production of Kiss Me, Katie, as of Hamlet." Now, if I'm not mistaken, this gag about the presumably fictitious Kiss Me, Katie was written a couple of decades before the debut of Kiss Me, Kate--which, as you no doubt know, was *based* on a Shakespeare play! (Milne then goes on about Hug Me, Harriet and Cuddle Me, Constance.)]
Also recommended: this item called "A Lost Masterpiece."
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/7365/7365-h/7365-h.htm#article28
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unearths some literary gems.
From Holiday Time, by A. A. Milne:
***
[Apparently not everyone agrees that "it's never too early for nonsense"!]
"Do you know," said Archie, "that you are talking drivel? Nobody ought to drivel before breakfast. It isn't decent."
***
[A remark about an amateur trying to do a fancy rope trick.]
"What I say is, it's simply hypnotic suggestion. There's no rope there at all, really."
***
[Interpolated editor-author dialogue within a story-in-progress.]
EDITOR. THIS IS SPLENDID. THIS QUITE RECONCILES ME TO THE ABSENCE OF THE ROBIN. BUT WHAT WAS ELSIE DOING DOWNSTAIRS?
AUTHOR. I AM MAKING ROBERT ASK HER THAT QUESTION DIRECTLY.
EDITOR. YES, BUT JUST TELL ME NOW—BETWEEN FRIENDS.
***
[[N.B. The single brackets in the George & Henry scenes below are Milne's, not mine.]]
Henry (airily, with a typically British desire to conceal his emotion). Who is the lucky little lady?
George (taking out a picture postcard of the British Museum and kissing it passionately). Isobel Barley!
[If Henry is not careful he will probably give a start of surprise here, with the idea of suggesting to the audience that he (1) knows something about the lady's past, or (2) is in love with her himself. He is, however, thinking of a different play. We shall come to that one in a moment.]
***
George. Tell her—nothing. But should anything (feeling casually in his pockets) happen to me—if (going over them again quickly) I do not come back, then (searching them all, including the waistcoat ones, in desperate haste), give her—give her—give her (triumphantly bringing his handkerchief out of the last pocket) this, and say that my last thought was of her. Good-bye, my old friend. Good-bye.
[Exit to Rocky Mountains.
Enter Isobel.]
Isabel. Why, where's Mr Turnbull?
Henry (sadly). He's gone.
Isabel. Gone? Where?
Henry. To the Rocky Mountains—to shoot bears. (Feeling that some further explanation is needed.) Grizzly ones.
Isobel. But he was HERE a moment ago.
Henry. Yes, he's only JUST gone.
***
I also recommend, in a general way, the several "Miss Middleton" pieces and the epilogue--i.e., the last few items in the book:
http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/5675/pg5675-images.html
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unearths some literary gems.
From Once a Week, by A. A. Milne:
***
I know her name was Hopkins, because I had her down on my programme as Popkins, which seemed too good to be true.
***
"I mean a name for her [a parrot] to call you. Because if she's going to call you 'Auntie' or 'Darling,' or whatever you decide on, you'd better start by teaching her that."
And then I had a brilliant idea.
"I've got the very word," I said. "It's 'hallo.' You see, it's a pleasant form of greeting to any stranger, and it will go perfectly with the next word that she's taught, whatever it may be."
"Supposing it's 'wardrobe,'" suggested Reggie, "or 'sardine'?"
"Why not? 'Hallo, Sardine' is the perfect title for a revue.
***
"Do you happen to want," I said to Henry, "an opera hat that doesn't op?"
***
"Do you know 'Hunt the Pencil'?"
"No. What do you do?"
"You collect five pencils; when you've got them, I'll tell you another game."
***
I also quite like "A Trunk Call," more or less in its entirety:
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/24313/24313-h/24313-h.htm#A_TRUNK_CALL
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unearths some literary gems.
From Belinda, An April Folly in Three Acts, by A. A. Milne:
***
Belinda. Darling, wasn't it next Thursday you were coming back?
Delia. No, this Thursday, silly.
Belinda (penitently). Oh, my darling, and I was going over to Paris to bring you home.
Delia. I half expected you.
Belinda. So confusing their both being called Thursday.
***
Belinda. Not that I should know him from Adam after all these years–except for a mole on his left arm.
Delia. Perhaps Adam had a mole.
Belinda. No, darling; you're thinking of Noah. He had two.
***
Betty. The two gentlemen, Mr. Baxter and Mr. Devenish, have both called together, ma'am.
Belinda (excited). Oh! How–how very simultaneous of them!
***
Belinda. Doesn't he talk nonsense?
Baxter. He'll grow out of it. I did.
Belinda. Oh, I hope not. I love talking nonsense, and I'm ever so old.
***
Devenish. Are you serious?
Belinda. Not as a rule.
***
[People as Landmarks dept.]
Tremayne. Are you Mrs. Tremayne by any chance?
Belinda. Yes.
Tremayne (nodding to himself). Yes.
Belinda. How did you know?
Tremayne (hastily inventing, moving down L. below the hammock). They use you as a sign-post in the village. Past Mrs. Tremayne's house and then bear to the left—
***
Belinda (Leading the way to the cupboard door.) Quick, in here.
Baxter (embarrassed at the thought that this sort of thing really only happens in a bedroom farce and moving towards her). I don't think I quite—
Belinda (reassuring him). It's perfectly respectable; it's where we keep the umbrellas. (She takes him by the hand.)
Baxter (resisting and looking nervously into the cupboard). I'm not at all sure that I—
Belinda (earnestly). Oh, but don't you see what trust I'm putting in you? (To herself.) Some people are so nervous about their umbrellas.
***
Belinda. Oh, he's a sort of statistician. Isn't that a horrid word to say? So stishany.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Dead Ernest, by Alice Tilton:
***
Within five minutes she had the pair back on the doorstep, and after another minute of fervent you-must-come-over-ing on the part of the young man, the two started down the walk with the goldfish, the mussels, and the butter.
***
“They might take it into their respective heads to check up on my pumpkins, in which they took an almost morbid interest. I did all the wrong things, but mine pumpkined and their didn’t, or words to that effect.”
***
“Runner-overs, that’s what they are!” Mrs. Mullet shook her head. “That’s their kind. They won’t be borrowing us out of house and home like the Haverstraws, but they’ll be running in, running out, all the time!”
***
“Mr. Witherall!” Her face, when she looked up at him, was wreathed in smiles. “Why, Mr. With-erall! Mis-ter With-erall!”
***
“You must stave them off [....] Say over and over again that you are at a loss to understand things. There’s nothing more time consuming than being at a loss.”
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam, by Chris Ewan:
***
"Ah, well that's the point, isn't it?" Rutherford said, leaning back in his chair and opening his arms in an expansive gesture, as if he was willing to give the entire café a hug.
***
From Keep It Quiet, by Richard Hull:
***
[The author has thoughtfully supplied us with a brace of snippets that are fraternal twins. Take your pick!]
***
In moments of crisis Ford always fell back on proverbs or quotations of dubious relevance. [p. 13]
***
Whenever Ford indulged in a quotation, which was distressingly frequently, it was never quite apposite and never quite accurate. [p. 37]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Vestal Fire by Compton Mackenzie:
***
Thirty years before this Don Luigi had sent in his bill to Christopher with a demand for immediate payment and a threat of legal proceedings. Whereupon Christopher had paid the bill and told Don Luigi that he would never enter his café again as long as the owner of it was alive. This vow nothing would induce him to break. Duncan Maxwell had begged Don Luigi to try the effect of peremptory bills on some of the other residents in the hope that they too would make solemn vows never to darken his doors again.
***
Scudamore’s humour was a mixture of American pawkiness and international pedantry. An elfin ponderousness is the paradox that describes it best.
[New restaurant concept: International House of Pedantry!]
***
He had a beard so long and so thick that he was never upset by the hoops of the little Sirenisi being driven between his legs, for it served as a sort of cow-catcher, and it was generally believed that he used it as a most efficacious mosquito-net. Scudamore had a theory that he had already been dead for some years and that it was only his beard and nails which were still alive, it being a well-known fact that the beard and nails continue to grow long after death.
***
Gigi had once read on a tinned tongue that it was hermetically sealed, and he had spent so much time trying to open that tin that thenceforward /ermeticamente/ became his adverb of extreme degree. For a thing to be hermetically impossible implied something beyond even the omnipotence of the Almighty.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Bellringer Street, by Robert Richardson:
***
[This line is from a series of disjointed conversational snippets overheard at a crowded party. Most of them are humdrum utterances on political or domestic topics and the like, so this intriguingly emphatic comment stood out for me--as perhaps the author intended!]
"Don't talk to me about people offering to lay a garden path."
***
A man of alarming height, wearing a precariously balanced toupee as conspicuous as melted cheese poured over a cauliflower, stood up and began thanking everyone in sight.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Four Days' Wonder, by A. A. Milne:
***
They were great theatre-goers, and had missed the last five minutes of the Third Act of every play worth seeing since 1922.
***
Sturge's book was coming out next month, and Fenton had not yet decided what he was going to say about it. It depended upon certain unknown quantities, one of them being, of course, the actual quality of the book.
***
From their very first meeting Derek had had an offensive way of looking at him, and as soon as the kid had had any eyebrows to raise, it had started raising them.
***
[Re. two fictional characters, each of whom preferred to sleep outdoors.]
It would have been convenient, this being so, if they had married each other, but unfortunately they were in different books.
***
"I don't want a paper, I don't want a paper, I don't want a paper," said Mr. Watterson fretfully.
[Cf. the Goons, "Six Charlies in Search of an Author":
Grytpype-Thynne:
Nonsense, nonsense, you'd fall down without them. You'd fall DOWN without them.
Ned:
You'd fall down without THEM.
Grytpype-Thynne:
YOU'D fall down without them.
(falling about)
Peter:
Take yer choice.
(Ned breaks up)]
***
His hair was very short at the back--not at all what you expect of a painter, but perhaps he wasn't a very good painter.
***
[Aunts dept.]
"She has all the virtues. She is a mother to those who want mothers, and an aunt to anybody who likes aunts."
***
Though in these last two years he had become an enthusiastic cricketer, he excelled as a bad player rather than as a good one, doing so with the air of one who preferred it this way, as being more in the literary tradition.
[Isn't there a Stephen Potter subsection about upmanship through playing badly and losing? (If there isn't, there should be.)]
***
Outside the open windows starlings imitated themselves and other birds untiringly.
***
[Douglas Adams Precursing--and One-Upping!--dept.]
"Have you got two towels?"
"One," said Jenny, looking at the towel-horse.
"I'll have another ready for you. I've told Mrs. Bassett over and over again that the secret of a contented life is two towels."
***
Whenever Leslie Brand let fall an epigram, and he seemed unable to let fall anything else, she either trilled or else bubbled with happy laughter.
***
He looked at himself in the Queen Anne mirror, and found that once again it had no alternative to offer him.
***
[Which Is Pithier? dept.]
"But he's absolutely innocent. As innocent as a--"
"New-born babe," prompted Nancy.
"As innocent as a well, as a matter of fact I was going to say a 'babe unborn.' I don't know that there's much in it."
"Babe unborn," said Nancy. "Much better. Sorry."
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unearths some literary gems.
From After the Exhibition, by Dolores Gordon-Smith:
***
[This genericized name has so many components, the hyphenation just gives up midway through!]
"The cleaner, Mrs. whatever-it-is the woman's called, from the village."
[Later on, a different character refers to yet another character as "Mrs. Whatever-she-was-called." And note the discrepancies in capitalization and hyphenation: clearly these two Mrs. Whatevers are no relation to each other. (:v>]
[By the way, I was recently reminded that there was a Boston-area 1980s band called Someone and the Somebodies.]
***
[In case it's not clear from the (lack of) context, the line below has the same intent as the one I recently shared from a Clason novel, "The first thing I knew was when that West broke into my room to ask some idiotic question about a bathing suit. I'll bathing suit him!"]
"Motion pictures, indeed! I'd like to give them motion pictures!"
***
The sofa and armchairs had seen better days. Lots of better days.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Corpse Diplomatique, by Delano Ames:
***
He was wearing a beret I'd forgotten he had. A copy of a French Communist newspaper was folded beside his saucer and he had bought a packet of Gauloises cigarettes. He gesticulated in a very Latin way as he asked the waiter to bring me a Dubbonet. He looked essentially, unmistakably English. I'd never noticed it before.
***
Mrs Andrioli... bustled in with a kind of well-that's-that air about her.
***
[I love the wealth of meaning and intensity of feeling that the phrase "I mean to say" can have in the mouth of a Brit (and how--Incomplexpletives Dept.--it's not even necessary to specify what one means to say).]
"Not that one's superstitious or any rot of that sort, but... I mean to say!"
***
As the question was not only cryptic but also rhetorical I smiled back vaguely and said nothing.
***
Midday cocktail parties usually take me like this at about five-thirty in the afternoon, especially when I have missed tea. I glanced through a footnote in Hugo's Simplified Grammar and learned that the imperfect of the subjunctive is almost never used in contemporary French conversation; but even this did not cheer me greatly.
***
Dagobert ordered a bottle of Veuve Cliquot, though he does not normally like champagne, and attacked the Anglo-Saxon heresy that champagne ought to be very dry. Like all silly things it should be slightly sweet and, as it is not supposed to chill, it should not be too cold. It ought to go off with a resounding pop, the cork preferably bouncing from the ceiling on to someone else's head. It ought to have a reckless label designed by, say, Raoul Dufy, and the neck of the bottle should be festooned with plenty of gold and silver tinfoil.
***
"It is pointless celebrating when there's something to celebrate. You need to celebrate when there's nothing in particular to get excited about."
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Murder of Gonzago, by R. T. Raichev:
***
"It will be some time before Lord Remnant is forgotten."
"Roderick's personality may have been more forcefully colourful than those of the bland and timid masses, but one does tend to forget people the moment they stop coming to dinner, Provost. Certain people one even forgets during dinner. It's most disconcerting. You look across the table and you wonder, who the hell is that?"
***
"Recordings of various amateur theatricals. So tedious. Everybody dressed up as dentists or minor émigré royalty or organic vegetables or Christmas tree decorations."
[N.B. Dressing as the decorations is a nice twist on the "disguised as a Christmas tree" theme, eh?]
***
[Bonus: In the context of a tale about King Midas and the anthropomorphized (female) earth, someone refers to the latter as "Mrs. Earth."]
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unearths some literary gems.
From Green Shiver, by Clyde B. Clason:
***
She was as lovely as Yang Tai-chen, that celebrated court beauty of the T'ang dynasty.
And as modern as Rockefeller Center.
***
"Mrs. Kroll told Rawley that she had driven over in the station wagon to spend the afternoon with one of her friends, Charlotte somebody-or-other."
***
[Who Needs Context? dept.]
"Auxiliary verbs may make a tremendous difference."
***
From
from The Good Thief's Guide to Venice, by Chris Ewan:
***
Victoria dabbed her lips with her napkin and backed away from me with a palms-up gesture, like I was a stack of playing cards she'd carefully balanced and was loath to upset.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Hanging Around Until, by David Hadley:
***
‘Not that way.’ I pointed in the opposite direction. ‘That way.’
‘Why the fuck didn't you say so?’
‘You seemed so happy going that way. We didn't want to disturb you,’ I replied pleasantly. ‘Besides, it's a much nicer walk that way. Don't you think so, Guy?’
‘Oh yes, very nice. I think you get a much better view of the... er... the road... pavement... houses that way.’
‘In fact, if I ever feel the need to go in the exact opposite direction to the one I originally intended, that would be, in fact, the way I would most definitely go.’ I said.
***
I have a vivid recollection of that look on Guy's face. A frown so tight, it seemed as though he was trying to push his eyes around to look inside his brain to find the elusive memory.
***
‘I always mean what I say,’ I said. ‘Even if I can't always say exactly what I mean.’
***
I picked listlessly at the knee of my jeans. My knee poked like a bald head out of the hole; strands of wispy denim material flapped uselessly from the tear. I arranged the strands like a man covering up his bald patch with his remaining hair.
***
‘All right, I'm going. Thanks for the complete lack of help.’
‘Any time,’ Ron said. ‘Whenever you've got a problem, don't hesitate to not come to me.’
***
‘Sometimes it all feels so absurd though,’ I said. ‘I'm too old for teenage angst and too young for a mid-life crisis.’
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unearths some literary gems.
From Nick Hornby's Funny Girl:
***
She liked the leading man, a French pop singer named Johnny Solo, presumably by his manager rather than by Monsieur and Madame Solo.
***
"Where have I been? Nowhere. You, meanwhile, have been lounging around in your underwear in Wales, while Johnny Foreigner ogles."
"You could have ogled, if you'd come to Wales."
"Who goes all the way to Wales for an ogle? Especially a secondhand ogle."
She didn't want to have a conversation about second-hand ogling, and she certainly didn't want a conversation about Johnny Foreigner.
"What did you do instead, then?"
"Oh, you know," he said airily. "Thinking. Reading. Taking stock."
She wished he'd chosen any three other activities--space exploration, say, and needlework and coal mining. He wasn't a thinker or a reader or a stock-taker.
[....]
"I was actually phoning to ask you out to dinner," he said eventually.
[....]
She shrugged down the phone, but he couldn't see her, so in the end she had to say yes.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Magic Mirror, by Mickey Friedman:
***
Jack had decided to make much of my being Southern, and I had been "Honeychiled" almost to death.
***
[Incidentally, the "magic mirror" of the title is an art objet that is said to have once belonged to Nostradamus.]
***
From Blood from a Stone, by Dolores Gordon-Smith:
***
"Here we are, Aunt Constance," said Terence Napier. "One doctor, as prescribed, to be taken regularly before lunch."
***
It wasn't, he thought, necessary to pump Mrs. Mountford. She wasn't a pump so much as a tap.
***
"Yes, Mrs. Paxton's sapphires. A big picture it was, with Mrs. Whoever it is--the lady who's got them now, I mean--all dressed up, with them on."
***
[Time-Space Continuum dept.]
The dinner gong wouldn't sound till eight and she had acres of time on her hands.
***
[During a séance]
"You'll have to be rather more precise with your instructions," said Mary Hawker, addressing the spirit of Barita as briskly as if it were on a committee.
***
"Please say you'll forgive me."
"Of course," said Jack, with a reassuring gesture of his beef muffin.
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unearths some literary gems.
From She Shall Have Murder, by Delano Ames:
***
[Fictitious Books Mentioned in Actual Books dept.]
It [the book the narrator-protagonist was going to write, but she wrote this one instead] was going to be called "Waking--No Such Matter."
I am sorry about "Waking--No Such Matter." It would have been a significant book.
***
Dagobert's wife.
I ought, I suppose, to go into all that, but to tell the truth I have a headache, and perhaps she won't be necessary to the story. If she should intrude later on I shall describe her fully.
***
"You are very naughty, Jimmy, and Babs is very cross with you." The italics are her own.
***
The dramatic effect of the above break is admittedly phoney. I was interrupted. But on re-reading I decided to let it stand. It makes a kind of chapter, and I like plenty of chapters, so that you can stop reading with a clear conscience and do something useful.
***
[As the protagonist is enlisted by her boss to help him with a crossword clue about Fidelio.]
"Wasn't there someone in the opera," I said, getting interested in the thing in spite of myself, "who dresses herself up as a man?" My memory of the opera was vague; in fact I'd never heard of it.
***
Before dealing with the vagaries of Dagobert's imagination I'd better put down the unvarnished facts. They can be varnished afterwards.
***
It was a lovely evening and I'll not hear a word against it.
***
Then he began the "Prelude in C Sharp Minor" so quietly that you could almost hear the quietness.
***
"Good Lord!" He glanced at his wrist-watch and jumped to his feet. "I'll miss the Mickey Mouse--I hope."
***
[While dining in a restaurant]
We concentrated on something à la Valenciana.
***
And yet to-night as the cold and darkness reclaimed their nocturnal reign over the premises of Number II Mandel Street I was oppressed by the atmosphere. It had never occurred to me before that the office had an atmosphere.
***
"I could get fond of painting," he said, and I realised with horror that he meant it.
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unearths some literary gems.
From The Case of the Curious Client, by Christopher Bush:
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"He said a lot about being knocked down with a feather," Galley said.
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[Irrelevant Quotations dept.]
"An honest man's the noblest work of God," he quoted, and heaven knows why.
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"Something about that girl always gets me. Damned if I know why."
I said nothing. To him she might have been a lump in the throat; to me she'd been a pain in the neck.
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[Fictitious Naughty Stage Comedies dept.!]
He'd first met her when she was in the chorus of Now You're Getting It.... Previous to that she'd been on the road with a company touring in How's Your Father?....
[Of course, How's Your Father? was too appealing to stay fictitious forever, and I see that several decades after this novel was written, it became the title of a TV show.]
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[Both Sides of the Family dept.]
It looked to me as if we were in for the father and mother of all fogs.
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unearths some literary gems.
From Poison Jasmine, by Clyde B. Clason:
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[Did Prof. Oddfellow go back in time and write this sentence?]
"Some words have so many [associations] that we might almost think of them as magic words."
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"The first thing I knew was when that West broke into my room to ask some idiotic question about a bathing suit. I'll bathing suit him!" Todd cackled as if he considered the last remark a witticism.
[And a few paragraphs later, after someone has called Todd "Scrooge."]
"Scrooge, eh?" He frowned severely. "I'll Scrooge you, young man!"
[All of which brings to mind the Pythons' pepperpot "Madame Sartre," who as you may recall has a line in that same vein.]
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[Apparently, members of the What's-Their-Name extended family can show up even in familiar old expressions. Here's one of them understudying Robin Hood!]
"Rambling all around what-you-call-it's barn," Willis answered dryly.
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