From The Black Goatee, by Constance and Gwenyth Little:

[If you want more "screwball mysteries" in your life, I might recommend this one. It could be shelved comfortably next to Alice Tilton--providing, of course, one wasn't using an alphabetical or spine-color system. (:v> Incidentally, I was mulling over the distinction between "screwball" and "zany"--my impression being, in the film-comedy world, that they are two quite different animals, the former involving hapless protagonists whom circumstances force into a comically undignified antics, and the latter involving protagonists for whom antics are "normal" behavior. So, though Tilton has been described as "screwball," I might suggest that she's sort of halfway between the two. While her characters certainly aren't intrinsically zany on the order of the Marx Brothers or Wheeler and Woolsey, it doesn't take much to prompt them into silly behavior, and they don't lose much sleep over looking silly. And I would say that this Little-Little novel is along similar lines, with the additional similarity that the various slightly kooky characters have all known each other forever or, even when they haven't, behave as if they have.]

***

"Well, I know a man--" Ed began, but wasn't able to get anywhere in telling about his man, because everyone else knew a man, also, and couldn't be bothered hearing about Ed's.

***

"What did he say?"

"Nothing. And he said it very well, too."

***

[Goat Getting: The Extended Metaphor Version]

"He wanted to get your goat, and he walked off with it under his arm."