“He felt singularly light-hearted, and the immediate cause was his safety razor. A week ago he had bought the thing in a sudden fit of enterprise, and now he shaved in five minutes, where before he had taken twenty, and no longer confronted his fellows, at least one day in three, with a countenance ludicrously mottled by sticking-plaster.”

“He disliked emotion, not because he felt lightly, but because he felt deeply.”

“I began to get really keen, for every man at the bottom of his heart believes that he is a born detective.”

“The men who knew that he knew what he knew had found him”

“Jock put his shoulder to the framework and the whole thing crumbled inward with a crash of glass. "Rotten as touch-wood," he said. "This place would never stand a siege.”

“How will you deal with him?" Belses asked.Jock lifted a brawny fist and regarded it lovingly. "Knock him out-- truss him up-- whatever the Almighty permits us."Supposing he's not alone?"Oh, then, if his trusties are with him, there'll be a bonny rumpus.”

“I am an ordinary sort of fellow, not braver than other people, but I hate to see a good man downed, and that long knife would not be the end of Scudder if I could play the game in his place.”