Only in French

     "I have spoken to him. He promises. It appears that he forgets. It is, of course, true thata he is Italian, and that Fritzl is Hungarian and - "

    "At the Restaurant Maillaux there are no waiters who are Italian," Andre said. "There are no waiters who are Hungarian. All are French. If they speak among themselves, they speak in French. Many of the patrons can tell when waiters are speaking in French and when in Italian. it is a flaw, William. A serious flaw. It is undermining."

(from Murder Is Served, by Richard and Frances Lockridge)

Have to have a grade

     "Anyway," he said, "I had them write this term paper. In class." He looked at Jerry North. "It's the end of the winter term, you know," he said. "They have to have grades. I have to find out which have been listening, or even thinking. So they write these papers."

(from Murder Is Served, by Richard and Frances Lockridge)

Which raises the question, Why do we have to have grades?

It's all relative

     "I told you that you were taking this job too seriously."

    "It's a fault. People pay me for a job, I have to do it. Boone Silva felt the same way."

    "Boone? What happened to Boone?"

    "You wasted your money, Lang. He just wasn't the man for the job."

    "I was told he was the fastest - "

    "That's what he thought, Lang. But fast is relative, you know. Maybe he was a right fast man where he came from, but this here's a big country."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Bad guys don't change much

     "Is there trouble, Borden?"

    "I am hoping there won't be. I shall be making an arrest now."

    "Be careful, Borden."

    "That I'll be, but he's a foolish man. He's killed six men to cover up a crime for which no one wanted him. And I do not doubt he'll be foolish still."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Bad odds

 Borden Chantry smiled. Such men as Boone Silva liked to kill, but they trusted in their speed and marksmanship - and in the present case there was a chance for neither. Whatever skill Boone might have was negated by the reason of position. At the distance neither man could miss, and at the distance both would probably die. And Borden Chantry was banking that Silva did not want to die.

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Leave Western towns alone!

 "Blazer over at the express office was a sharpshooter with Sherman, and he fit in three, four Indian battles. Ain't hardly a man in any western town who wasn't in the war on one side or t'other, and most have fit Injuns since they were boys. An' most of them shot meat for the table. Anybody comes into one of these towns huntin' truble, he's askin for a stakeout on Boot Hill."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

The habit of thieves

 "Way I heard it, that dead man had money when he come to town. Where is it now? You can bet that whoever has it will want to spend it. What Pa always said. 'You let a thief have money,' he used to say, 'and there ain't one in fifty can keep it hid. They got to go out an' live high on the hog. All you got to do is watch."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Didn't know them all

     For a few minutes he simply stood in the street. It was an easy street, lazy-seeming and dusty, too warm part of the time, too cold and windy at others, yet it had the advantage of being familiar.

    He knew all the people on that street, knew what they were about. He recognized the rigs that stood there, knew the brands on the saddled stock along the hitching rail, and knew who rode most of the horses. Most of them were men he had worked with, men he knew and trusted. Yet somewhere among them was a murderer, which proved there was at least one man he did not know.

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Crafty dumb

     "Big Injun," Chantry suggested, "you make him a coffin. All right?"

    "Blanket good enough." Big Injun was abrupt. "Worms eat him, anyway."

    "I want a coffin for him. Will you make it or do I hire somebody else?"

    "One dollar?"

    "All right."

    Everything with Big Injun was one dollar. Didn't he know what twenty-five cents was? Or was he smart enough not to learn?

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

I won't mess with them!

     "Marshal, people have said some pretty hard things about me, but I don't think you ever heard anybody question my nerve."

    "That's right," Chantry agreed, honestly. "I never did."

    "Then understand this. I have a business here, a fair-sized investment in the town, but if those boys come looking I am going to crawl into the nearest hole and pull the hole in after me."

    "Who are they?"

    "I've said enough, and I pray to the good Lord that I am wrong, but Marshal . . . find your killer, and find him quick."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

If you have heard this novel, you know that "those boys" are the Sacketts, and the unidentified corpse at the beginning of the story is one of the lesser known of the Sackett characters.

Two qualifications for a marshal

     "You married a rancher, Bess, and when I can get on my feet, I'll go back to ranching. This is my country and I belong here. As for being a marshall . . . somebody has to do it."

    "But why does it have to be you?" she protested.

    "I am good with a gun, and they know it. More than that, I know when not to use a gun, and they know that, too."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Strong stuff

 A tall, handsome man with sandy hair stopped on the walk across the street. "What's the matter, Bord? You in trouble?"

"Seems like. There's a body in the street an' our postmistress is reading the riot act over it. You'd think she's never seen a dead man . . . at her age."

"Less you say about her age to her, the better off you'll be, Bord." He glanced at the body. "Who is it? Some drunk?"

"Prob'ly. I never did see so many men couldn't handle liquor. They get to drinkin' that block an' tackle whiskey and right away there's trouble."

"Block an' tackle whiskey?"

"Sure," Chantry chuckled at the old joke. "One drink an' you'll tackle anything."

(from Borden Chantry, by Louis L'Amour)

Couldn't quit scrapping

 "The Irish were a fighting lot and might have whipped the British a dozen times over if they could have stopped fighting amongst themselves, but they wouldn't put aside their old hatreds, and some of them invited the Danes to help, and a sorry day it was."

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Oh for one good night's sleep!

 He slept as he always did, waking often, listening for a few minutes, then going back to sleep again. He had lived so long in places where to sleep too soundly might mean death that he had lost the habit. What would it be like, he wondered, to sleep a night through without worry?

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Home on the desert

Suddenly, standing alone at the edge of the desert moonlight, silent in the stillness, Callaghen knew it was here he was going to stay. How, he did not know, for around him was desolation, yet a desolation that spoke to him in the softness of the wind, in the bareness of the mountains. But he knew at that moment that he would not leave the desert . . . or leaving, he would return.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Patience required

 He settled down to wait. He had water, and he knew how to be patient. Without patience no man should go into the desert. The rocks wait for the years to change them, the plants wait for the rain. The Indians, too, know how to wait.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Life in the Mohave Desert

     The Mohave is high desert, 2000 to 5000 feet above sea level, except in the 550 square miles or so of Death Valley, where at one point it falls to 282 feet below sea level.

    In summer the temperature can reach 134 degrees or more; in hollows, or in the bottom of washes or canyons, it can run a much as fifty degrees higher.

    Winter is a different story. Wind sweeps the desert day in and day out; it is often bitterly cold, and there is even showfall. The snow rarely lasts long, but winter in the Mohave can be brutal punishment.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Reason for hatred

 Twice, on flimsy excuses, he had broken Callaghen from sergeant to private, once by his order, once by his influence. And there is perhaps no one hated more by a man than one to whom he has done an injustice.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Concerning the desert

 That was the secret of the desert. One had to accomodate one's self to it. To the vast loneliness, the distances, the far-off hazy mountains, to the shadows they took on at dawn or at sunset. There was harshness in this land, but there was beauty, too. It was a country a man could grow to love.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

Unspectacular but necessary

 He considered Captain Hill. A good man, but a tired one. Nearing fifty yars of age, without influence and probably withut anything spectacular in his record, he would be shunted from post to post now, with no hope of promotion. A good man lot in the shuffle. He would be nearing retirement, a patient man who did his duty from day to day, just one of the man who help to make the whole machine work.

(from Callaghen, by Louis L'Amour)

The entertainment value of hiccups

     "Oh, I say," she said, "will you give this to Mr. Wooster when you see him?" She held out Mr. Wooster's cigarette case. "He must have dropped it somewhere. I say," she proceeded, "it's an awful lark. He's going to give a lecture to the school."

    "Indeed, miss?"

    "We love it when there are lectures. We sit and stare at the poor dears, and try to make them dry up. There was a man last term who got hiccoughs. Do you think Mr. Wooster will get hiccoughs?"

    "We can but hope for the best, miss."

    "It would be such a lark, wouldn't it?"

    "Highly enjoyable, miss."

    "Well, I must be getting back. I want to get a front seat." And she scampered off. An engaging child. Full of spirits.

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

The ultimate faux pas

 Well, it was a respite, and I welcomed it. But I began to see that a crisis had arisen which would require adroit handling. Rarely had I observed Mr. Wooster more set on a thing. Indeed, I could recall no such exhibition of determination on his part since the time when he had insisted, against my frank disapproval, of wearing purple socks.

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Couldn't be clearer

     "What I want - Jeeves, have you seen that play called I-forget-its-dashed-name?"

    "No, sir."

    "It's on at the What-d'you-call-it. I went last night. The hero's a bright chap who's buzzing along, you know, quite merry and bright, and suddenly a kid turns up and says she's his daughter. Left over from act one, you know - absolutely the first he'd heard of it. Well, of course, there's a bit of a fuss and they say to him "What-ho?" and he says, "Well, what about it/" and they say, "Well, what about it?" and he says, "Oh, all right, then, if that's the way you feel!" and he takes the kid and goes off with her out into the world together, you know."

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Too late now

 You may say what you like against Bingo, but nobody has ever found him a depressing host. Why, many a time in the days of his bachelorhood I've known him to start throwing bread before the soup course. Yet now he and Uncle Thomas were a pair. He looked haggard and careworn, like a Borgia who suddenly remembered that he has forgotten to shove cyanide in the consumme, and the dinner gong due any moment.

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Now the hard part

     Looking back at it, I can see that what saved me from Colney Hatch in this crisis was my bright idea in buying up most of the contents of the local sweet-shop. By serving out sweets to the kid practically incessantly we managed to get through the rest of that day pretty satisfactorily. At eight o'clock he fell asleep in a chair; and, having undressed him by unbuttoning every button in sight and, where there were no  buttons, pulling till something gave, we carried him up to bed.

    Feddie stood looking at the pile of clothes on the floor with a sort of careworn wrinkle between his eyes and I knew what he was thinking. To get the kid undressed had been simple - a mere matter of muscle. But how were we to get him into his clothes again?

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)

Concerning Freddie and mosquitoes

 I don't know if you know Marvis Bay? It's in Dorsetshire; and, while not what you would call a fiercely exciting spot, has many good points. You spend the day there bathing and sitting on the sands, and in the evenings you stroll out on the shore with the mosquitoes. At nine p.m. you rub ointment on the wounds and go to bed. It was a simple, healthy life, and it seemed to suit poor old Freddie absolutely. Once the moon was up and the breeze sighing in the trees, you couldn't drag him from that beach with ropes. He became quite a popular pet with the mosquitoes. They would hang round waiting for him to come out, and would give a miss to perfectly good strollers just so as to be in good condition for him.

(from Carry On, Jeeves, by Sir Pelham Wodehouse)