It is never difficult to distinguish between a Scotsman with a grievance and a ray of sunshine.

Never put anything on paper, my boy, and never trust a man with a small black moustache.

You know how it is with some girls. They seem to take the stuffing right out of you. I mean to say, there is something about their personality that paralyses the vocal cords and reduces the contents of the brain to cauliflower.

I shoved on a dressing-gown, and flew downstairs like a mighty, rushing wind.

If he had a mind, there was something on it.

...what I feel we ought to do at this juncture is to dash off somewhere where it's quiet and there aren't so many housesdancing the 'Blue Danube' and shove some tea into ourselves. And over the pot and muffins I shall have something veryimportant to say to you.

[He] saw that a peculiar expression had come into his nephew's face; an expression a little like that of a young hindu fakir who having settled himself on his first bed of spikes is beginning to wish that he had chosen one of the easier religions.