unearths some literary gems.
From The Black Rustle, by Constance and Gwenyth Little:
***
I tore my eyes away, shifted in my seat, and bumped Gert's knees again. Gert said "Tch" and I said "Tch," too, just to keep my end up.
***
It was merely an oft-repeated account of her cruise to Bermuda.
However, Gert was not the sort to let a thing like that go on indefinitely, and she presently stopped the flow by the simple expedient of opening her mouth and launching into a two-week vacation in Maine in a voice that drowned out Marge's pipe. The cruise faded to a murmur and then died, and the vacation had the floor. [Cf. the similar conversational battle of the ghost stories in Affair at Aliquid, where someone wanted to "get her ghost off her chest."]
***
"Is Gert his girl friend?" I asked casually.
Randall grinned. "I'm afraid she hardly qualifies. She never holds things properly or hands him the right tool." [Oo-er!]
***
"Can't understand why you aren't all outside getting the fresh air," Bruce observed to the room at large....
Randall said, "We were afraid it might get us first."
***
"If you'd all eat at one certain time," he muttered, "we'd know where we are."
Randall called after him, "Why do you want to know where you are?"
***
