unearths some literary gems.
From Ellery Queen:
The lobby was jammed, and a peacock's tail of eyes regarded him with curiosity.
***
Flapdoodle, with onions on the side.
***
He was christened Aubrey, as in C. Aubrey Smith, rest his stiff-upper soul.
***
"I wonder what the blonde's got up her sleeve."
"I'm glad somebody has something up something," Ellery said.
***
When he spoke his voice was resonant, his diction perfect, his accent Harvard--somewhere between beginning-senior and postgraduate consistency; such a voice must have behind it entire walls of morocco-bound volumes.... In the midst of his performance, [he] gave her a broad wink which detracted not, by the shadow of a subjunctive, from it.
***
The Inspector... gave him half a grin, the left half.
***
"Where do you want to check me next?"
"Walt's room."
"We searched it like Maxwell J. House looking for the last drop."
***
[Blank "map" dept.]
The old man's face was a sight to behold. For just as all the combined rays of the spectrum reflect to the eye the color white, so all the Inspector's emotions--stupefaction, self-castigation, professional chagrin, anger at subordinates and half a dozen others--produced an expression of total blankness.
***
[Elusive Expletives dept.]
He stumped into his study, stubbed his toe, groped for a curse word....
***
Ellery arrghed and clapped the book shut. That's what you get when you do bird-dogging for analogies! They strike close enough to make a noise, but then they go ricocheting off into the irrelevant.
