“In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness.”

“I left him thinking it over. If I were a bookie, I should feel justified in offering a hundred to eight against.""You can't have approached him properly. I might have known you would muck it up," said young Bingo. Which, considering what I had been through for his sake, struck me as a good bit sharper than the serpent's tooth.”

“The cosy glow which had been enveloping the Duke became shot through by a sudden chill. It was as if he had been luxuriating in a warm shower bath, and some hidden hand had turned on the cold tap.”

“A man who has spent most of his adult life trying out a series of patent medicines is always an optimist.”

“Sturgis had now become involved in a long story of his early manhood, and even had Soapy been less distrait he might have found it difficult to enjoy it to the full. It was about an acquaintance of his who had kept rabbits, and it suffered in lucidity from his unfortunate habit of pronouncing rabbits 'roberts', combined with the fact that by a singular coincidence the acquaintance had been a Mr. Roberts. Roberts, it seemed, had been deeply attached to roberts. In fact, his practice of keeping roberts in his bedroom had led to trouble with Mrs. Roberts, and in the end Mrs. Roberts had drowned the roberts in the pond and Roberts, who thought the world of his roberts and not quite so highly of Mrs. Roberts, had never forgiven her.”

“Had his brain been constructed of silk, he would have been hard put to it to find sufficient material to make a canary a pair of cami-knickers.”

“Hallo, Bertie.""Hallo, old turnip. Where have you been all this while?""Oh, here and there! Ripping weather we're having, Bertie.""Not bad.""I see the Bank Rate is down again.""No, really?""Disturbing news from Lower Silesia, what?""Oh, dashed!"He pottered about the room for a bit, babbling at intervals. The boy seemed cuckoo."Oh, I say, Bertie!" he said suddenly, dropping a vase which he had picked off the mantelpiece and was fiddling with. "I know what it was I wanted to tell you. I'm married.”