The story of the rat killing contest

 [This story is referred to several times in the Hon. Galahad Threepwood stories of Sir Pelham Wodehouse. I thought you might like to hear the full version, as found in Summer Lightning.]

"Let me tell you a little story about young Parsloe. One or two of us used to meet at the Black Footman in Gossiter Street in the old days - they've pulled it down now - and match our dogs against rats in the room behind the door. Well, I put my Towser, an admirable beast, up against young Parsloe's Banjo on one occasion for a hundred pounds a side. And when the night came and he was shown the rats, I'm dashed if he didn't just give a long yawn and roll over and go to sleep. I whistled him, called him - Towser, Towser. No good, fast asleep. And my firm belief has always been that young Parsloe took him aside just before the contest was to start and gave him about six pounds of steak and onions. Couldn't prove anything, of course, but I sniffed the dog's breath and it was like opening the kitchen door of a Soho chophouse on a summer night. That's the sort of man young Parsloe is."

Not very complimentary toward Grandma

     "So that's it, is it? Parsloe's pig-man going about offering three to one - against the form-book, I take it?"

    "Most decidedly. Pride of Matchingham was awarded second prize last year, but it is a quite inferior animal to the Empress."

    "Then you look after that pig of yours, Clarence," The Hon. Galahad spoke earnestly. "I see what this means. Parsloe's up to his old games and intends to queer the Empress somehow?"

    "Queer her?"

    "Nobble her. Or, if he can't do that, steal her."

    "You don't mean that."

    "I do mean it. The man's as slippery as a greased eel. He would nobble his grandmother if it suited his book. Let me tell you I've known young Parsloe for thirty years and I solemnly state that if his grandmother was entered in a competition for fat pigs and his commitments made it desirable for him to get her out of the way, he would dope her bran-mash and acorns without a  moment's hesitation."

(from Summer Lightning, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

From the vine

     Brennan put his cigar on the edge of the bar, carefully, so as not to disturb the ash. "I should like to open a bottle of wine," he said.

    "'Of the first grape only,'" Fallon quoted.

    Brennan glanced up from the bottle he had taken from under the bar. "'A vine bears three grapes,'" he said, "'the first of pleasure, the second of drunkenness, and the third of repentance.'" He filled two glasses two-thirds full. "I believe it was Anacharsis who said that."

(from Fallon, by Louis L'Amour)

    

To see is to believe

 Yet even as he spoke, he knew he probably was wasting his time. To those who have lived a sheltered life, exposed to no danger or brutality, only the actual sight of something of the kind will convince. Each person views the world in the light of his own experience.

(from Fallon, by Louis L'Amour)

Marked for the butcher shop

     "There's something out there," he said in a minute, and he gestured toward the brush along the creek. "I figure it's a varmint of some kind. The critters can smell it, and they're spooky."

    When I was in the saddle, he added, "You watch that ol' blaze-face mossy-horn on the far side. He's got it in his head to run."

    "I know him," I said. "He's a trouble-maker. Next time the Indians come around hunting beef they're going to get him."

(from Chancy, by Louis L'Amour)

Really small town

 We followed the marshal out the door and he pointed to indicate the Doc's ffice. Nothing in this town was very far away. If you walked a hundred yards in any direction you'd be out on the prairie.

(from Chancy, by Louis L'Amour)

Only bad news

A man ramrodding a herd of mixed stuff has got to be a worrier. He has to worry about what might happen, so he will  be ready for it if it does happen; and the only thing he can be downright sure of is that if what he was afraid of doesn't happen, something else will.

(from Chancy, by Louis L'Amour)