Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love something)

It used to take me all vacation to grow a new hide in place of the one they flogged off me during school term.

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden.

Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.

A good lawyer knows the law; a clever one takes the judge to lunch.

Optimist: day dreamer more elegantly spelled.

Between believing a thing and thinking you KNOW is only a small step and quickly taken.