Enough to make a preacher cuss

 Invariably, in the course of a man's struggle with a collar button it would slip from his fingers and roll into the most inaccessible place in the room. It was never possible to simply stoop down and pick up a collar button. One always had to get down on one's knees and reach under whatever piece of furniture was nearby and feel around for the missing object. It has been reliably reported that even ministers of the gospel used unseemly language on such occasions.

(from "McQueen of the Tumbling K," by Louis L'Amour)

She had already proposed

     He placed his hat carefully on the hook and sat down. He was suddenly tired. He ran his fingers through his crisp, dark hair. "Me?" he blinked his eyes and reached for the coffeepot. "I am going to shave and take a bath. Then I'm going to sleep for twenty hours about, and then I'm going to throw the leather on my horse and hit the trail."

    "I told you over there," Carol said quietly, "that I didn't want you to go."

    "Uh-uh. If I don't go now," he looked at her somberly, "I'd never want to go again."

    "Then don't go," she said.

    He didn't.

(from "The Man from Battle Flat," by Louis L'Amour)

Carpetbag courts

 In his short story, "Keep Travelin', Rider," Louis L'Amour refers to carpetbag courts, which were, of course, the legal system set up in the south after the War Between the States. We can assume that true justice for southerners was a vain hope in those days. One can only imagine what it was like living in the old south in those days.

A policeman's lot

 "I know you'll understand that in a case like this we have to fuss about and try to get as complete a picture as possible of the days, sometimes even the weeks and months, before the event. It generally turns out that ninety-nine percent of the information is quite useless and then everybody thinks how needlessly inquisitive and impertinent the police are. Sometimes, however, there is an apparently irrelevant detail that leads, perhaps by accident, to the truth."

(from Scales of Justice, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

The hard part of being a cop

 Alleyn decided to press home what might or might not be an advantage and so did so with distaste. He had been in the police service for over twenty years. Under slow pressure his outward habit had toughened, but, like an ice cube that under warmth will yield its surface but retain its inward form, so his personality had kept its pattern intact. When an investigation led him, as this did, to take action that was distasteful to him, he imposed a discipline upon himself and went forward. It was a kind of abstinence, however, that prompted him to do so.

(from Scales of Justice, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

Murder? Not likely

     "Ah. The baronet, now," Fox went on, "he's sweet on her as anyone could see. Would you think it was a strong enough attraction to incite either of them to violence?"

    "I should think he was going through the silly season most men of his type experience. I must say I can't see him raising an amatory passion to the power of homicide in any woman. You never know of course. I should think she must find life in Swevenings pretty dim."

(from Scales of Justice, by Dame Ngaio Marsh)

P. C. Gripper

 "Sergeants Bailey and Thompson and P. C. Gripper made sympathetic noises."

We find this expression in Scales of Justice, by Dame Ngaio Marsh. The abbreviation "P. C." stands for Police Constable, which is the lowest rank in the British police hierarchy.