“I believe everything out of the common. The only thing to distrust is the normal.”

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

“To spend your days on such work when the world is chockful of amusing things. Life goes roaring by and you only hear the echo in your stuffy rooms.”

“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 get into a tearing passion about something I know very little about, and when I learn more my passion ebbs away.”

“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.”