Revenge against the Prof

     The Inspector searched the mantel and under the carpet, as a matter of form, but there was no key anywhere. "Do your stuff, kid," he ordered.

    The young operative became deadly serious as he went over the lock. His hands made a few deft motions, involving the use of a long coiled spring, a screwdriver, and the blade of a knife. Then he placed his shoulder against one side of the door frame his right foot against the other, and pressed inward

    There was a sharp click, and then the door opened. Swarthout looked at his wristwatch. "One minute and forty-five seconds," he announced. "I wish the professor who flunked me in Mechanical Engineering could have seen that."

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

Passing the time

     Piper gave the driver the Minetta Lane address. "What were you doing behind this cab when I came down?'

    Swarthout looked innocent. "Nothing, Inspector. Nothing but passing the time away." There was the slightest accent on the word "passing."

    "Oh, yeah? You're a fine example to the public, Swarthout. The crap-shooting detective, huh? Gambling in public!"

    Swarthout took a pair of pink cubes from his pocket and rattled them lovingly. "I don't mind telling you in confidence, Inspector, that with these dice there isn't any gambling in it at all. I found 'em on Tony the Wop last week, and they take the chance out of games of chance."

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

Patient waiting

     Miss Withers knew that there was a saying that if you wait on the corner of Forty-second Street at Fifth Avenue long enough, you will meet everyone you ever knew. She had always doubted the usefulness of meeting everyone she'd ever known, and besides, there wasn't a high of probability that one of the cowboys had taken up such a vigil. Much less Rose Keeley, who didn't appear a highly patient person.

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

Morals in short supply

        "Did you think twins came into the world neck and neck, like racehorses on the home stretch? Laurie was born at midnight some twenty-four years ago, and Lew came at one o'clock. Like as two pins, they were, only Laurie was always yelling and Lew never did anything more than snivel. Twins have only morals enough for one, and Lew got 'em all."

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

One mean old woman

     "Trained nurse?" Hubert was almost laughing. "You don't know Gran. She'd throw a trained nurse out of the window, would Gran. She's a despot, and not so benevolent a one, either. I'd hate to cross her. And he hasn't let even the maid into her bedroom in years and years. If you got a trained nurse without her consent, or did anything else against her orders, Gran would be perfectly capable of cutting your throat. She's so old she doesn't care what happens."

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

Pollution back then?

He rubbed his eyes, half-blinded by the thick falling flakes of the sooty precipitate which passes for snow in Manhattan.

(from Murder On Wheels, by Stuart Palmer)

A warning to all young couples

 How little of permanent happiness could belong to a couple who were only brought together because their passions were stronger than their virtue, she could easily conjecture.

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Be very careful

    "Unhappy as the event must be for Lydia, we may draw from it this useful lesson; that loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable - that one false step involves her in endless ruin - that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful - and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex."

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen) 

Can't say much about his wife

     Her father, captivated by youth and beauty and that appearance of good humour which youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding nd illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her. Respect, esteem, and confidence had vanished for ever, and all his views of domestic happiness were overthrown. But Mr. Bennet was not of a disposition to seek comfort for the disappointment which his own imprudence had brought on, in any of those pleasures which too often console the unfortunate for their folly or their vice. He was fond of the country and of books, and from these tastes had arisen his principal enjoyments. To his wife he was very little indebted, than as her ignorance and folly had contributed to his amusement. This is not the sort of happiness which a man would in general wish to owe to his wife; but where other powers of entertainment are wanting, the true philosopher will derive benefit from such as are given.

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Realism or cynicism?

     "The more I see of the world, the more am I dissatisfied with it; and every day confirms my belief of the inconsistency of all human characters, and of the little dependence that can be placed on the appearance of either merit or sense." 

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Always marry for money

     Mr. Collins to be sure was neither sensible nor agreeable; his society was irksome, and his attchment to her must be imaginary. But still he would be her husband. Without thinking highly either of men or of matrimony, marriage hd always been her object; it was the only honourable provision for well-educated young women of small fortune, and however uncertain of giving happiness, must be their pleasantest preservation from want.

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Feigned humility

     "Nothing is more deceitful," said Darcy, "than the appearance of humility. It is often only carelessness of opinion, and sometimes an indirect boast."

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

Those confounded milkmen!

     "If you want to know the time, ask a pleeceman," she said. "You been on this beat long?

    "Just short of two weeks, miss."

    "I been here three days."

    "I hope you like it, miss."

    "So-so. The milkman's a nice boy."

    Constable Plimmer did not reply. He was busy silently hating the milkman. He knew him - one of those good-looking blighters; one of those oiled and curled perishers; one of those blooming fascinators who go about the world making things hard for ugly, honest men with loving hearts. Oh, yes, he knew the milkman.

(from "The Romance of an Ugly Policeman," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Spineless in love

    For some days after the breaking-off of diplomatic relations, Wilton seemed too pulverized to resume the offensive. He mooned about the links by himself, playing a shocking game, and generally comported himself like a man who has looked for the escape of gas with a lighted candle. In affairs of love the strongest men generally behave with the most spineless lack of resolution. Wilton weighed thirteen stone, and his muscles were like steel cables; but he could not have shown less pluck in this crisis in his life if he had been a poached egg. It was pitiful to see.

(from "Wilton's Holiday," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A drink with kick

     I found myself in a large room with an enormous picture stretching across the whole of one all, and under the picture a counter, and behind the counter divers chappies in white, serving drinks. They have barmen, don't you know, in New York, but not barmaids. Rum idea!

    I put myself unreservedly into the hands of one of the white chappies. He was a friendly soul, and I told him the whole state of affairs. I asked him what he thought would meet the case.

    He said that in a situation of that sort he usually prescribed a "lightning whizzer," and invention of his own. He said this was what rabbits trained on when they were matched against grizzly bears, and there was only one instance on record of the bear having lasted three rounds.

(from "Extricating Young Gussie," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Financial chump

     Nobody was fonder of old Uncle Cuthbert than I was, but everybody knows that, where money was concerned, he was the most complete chump in the annals of the nation. He had an expensive thirst. He never backed a horse that didn't get housemaid's knee in the middle of the race. He had a system of beating the bank at Monte Carlo which used to make the administration hang out the bunting and ring the joy-bells when he was sighted in the offing. Take him for all in all, dear old Uncle Cuthbert was as willing a spender as ever called the family lawyer a bloodsucking vampire because he wouldn't let Uncle Cuthbert cut down the timber to raise another thousand.

(from "Extricating Young Gussie," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

A plodding reader

     There was something admirable - and yet a little horrible - about Henry's method of study. He went after Learning with the cold and dispassionate relentlessness of a stoat pursuing a rabbit. The ordinary man who is paying installments on the Encyclopaedia Britannica is apt to get over-excited and skip impatiently to Volume XXVIII (VET-ZYM) to see how it all comes out in the end. Not so Henry. His was not a frivolous mind. He intended to read the Encyclopaedia through, and he was not going to spoil his pleasure by peeping ahead.

(from "The Man With Two Left Feet," by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Fearsome looking babe

     There was a moment, when Mike caught his first glimpse of Lady Adela Topping, when even his iron courage faltered a trifle. He had been warned, of course. They had told him that the chatelaine of Beevor Castle was a tough baby. But he had not been prepared for anything quite so formidable as this. Lady Adela had just returned from the garden and was still holding a stout pair of shears, and the thought of what a nasty flesh wound could be inflicted with these had a daunting effect.

    And apart from the shears he found her appearance intimidating. She was looking even more like Catherine of Russia than usual, and it was generally agreed that Catherine of Russia, despite many excellent qualities, was not everybody's girl.

(from Spring Fever, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

He look like a what?!

    "No doubt Stanwood began by telling your father all about the Stoker, and your father, not to be outdone in the courtesies, told Stanwood all about the cook. Not being aware who he was, of course. In these casual encounters in bars names are rarely exchanged. Until I introduced them, Stanwood had been to your father merely a pleasant stranger who looked like a hippopotamus."

    "He does look like a hippopotamus, doesn't he?"

    "Much more than most hippopotamuses do."

(from Spring Fever, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse) 

Rich, but not handsome

     Barribault's Hotel being a favourite haunt of the wealthy, and the wealthy being almost uniformly repulsive, its lobby around the hour of one-thirty is always full of human eyesores. Terry in her new hat raised the tone quite a good deal. Or so it seemed to Mike Cardinal. She was sitting at a table near two financiers with four chins, and he made his way there and announced his presence with a genial "Boo!" in her left ear. Having risen some six inches in a vertical direction, she stared at him incredulously.

(from Spring Fever, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Nervous old friends

     "Mr. Bennett, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion on my poor nerves."

    "You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."

(from Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)

They call it that, do they?

     The morning of May the twelfth, the fifty-second anniversary of his birth, had caught Lord Shortlands in poor shape. A dark despondency had him in its grip, and he could see no future for the human race. He glowered at the moat, thinking, as he had so often thought before, what a beastly moat it was.

    As a matter of fact, except for smelling a little of mud and dead eels, it was, as moats go, rather a good moat. But you would have been wasting your time if you had tried to sell that idea to Lord Shortlands. A sullen dislike for the home of his ancestors and everything onnected with it had been part of his spiritual make-up for some years now, and today, as has been indicated, he was in the acute stage of that malady which, for want of a better name, scientists call the heeby-jeebies.

(from Spring Fever, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Always that riding crop

     "We then decided to elope. You may be wondering what we're going to live on, but with my salary and a bit of money she has from the will of an aunt we shall be all right. So it was arranged that she should have an early breakfast, go to the garage, pinch the Bentley and put the other cars out of action,  leaving Cook for pursuint purposes only the Gardener's Ford."

    "That ought to fix him."

    "I think so. It is an excellent car for its purpose, but scarcely adapted to chasing daughters across country. Cook will never catch up with us."

    "Though I don't see what he could do, even if he did catch up with you."

    "You don't? What about that hunting crop of his?"

    "Ah, yes, I see what you mean."

(from Aunts Aren't Gentlemen, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)