“The Gedalists were nearly run down by a Dodge truck on which two grand pianos had been loaded: two uniformed officers were playing, in unison, with gravity and commitment, the 1812 Overture of Tchaikowsky, while the driver wove among the wagons with brusque swerves, pressing the siren at full volume, heedless of the pedestrians in his way.”

“Once I saw Graham - wholly unconscious of her proximity - push her with his restless foot. She receded an inch or two. A minute after one little hand stole out from beneath her face, to which it had been pressed, and softly caressed the heedless foot.”

“He rarely smoked, but once in a while, like now, when his world had been shaken, his woman nearly killed in front of his eyes, and he’d watched a house consume a man and spit him out, he figured a drag or two were appropriate.”

“Exercise, not philosophically and with religious gravity undertaken, but with the wild and romping activities of a spirited girl who runs up and down as if her veins were full of wine.”

“Two uniformed officers approached him at speed. Both were wearing Salvation Army badges and carrying some fearsomely bulky weapons labelled as ‘Googles’.One of them drew his Google and aimed it barrel-forward at my grandfather.”

“We stood there for a full half hour, like so many scarecrows, while they jeered at us from a distance, and one or two of us were shot down.”