unearths some literary gems.
From Margery Allingham's Sweet Danger:
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"Do you like American food? Scatty and I fixed her up an electric waffle iron. It works all right, but it's a bit big--the blacksmith made the actual grill--and you get waffles about a foot across. But I think that's all the better."
***
"Who is Mr. Glencannon?"
"One of the prime busybodies of the world.... He's an old boy of independent means who spends his life writing to the newspapers. He must spend half his day reading them and the other half writing to them."
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[These two gems are in the mouth of a French hotelier...]
"... declared his room had been ransacked--how do you say?--rendered to bubble and squeak."
"If they are not, then my reputation, the reputation of my so beautiful hotel for courtesy, intelligence, and, as you would say, 'wise guyishness,' will be done, gone, exploded--pouf!--like a carnival balloon."
***
Cowardice, and the letting down of friends, were the two cardinal sins in Mr. Randall's calendar.
