For a moment Jack felt the strongest inclination to snatch up his little gilt chair and beat the white-faced man down with it.

Wit is the unexpected copulation of ideas.

You are to consider that a certain melancholy and often a certain irascibility accompany advancing age: indeed it might be said that advancing age equals ill-temper. On reaching the middle years a man perceives that he is no longer able to do certain things, that what looks he may have had are deserting him, that he has a ponderous great belly, and that however much he may yet burn he is no longer attractive to women; and he rebels. Fortitude, resignation and philosophy are of more value than any pills, red, white or blue.

We understood one another better before ever I opened my mouth

Go and see whether the Doctor is about,’ said Jack, ‘and if he is, ask him to look in, when he has a moment.’ Which he is in the fish-market, turning over some old-fashioned lobsters. No. I tell a lie. That is him, falling down the companion-way and cursing in foreign.

Why there you are, Stephen,' cried Jack. 'You are come home, I find.' That is true,' said Stephen with an affectionate look: he prized statements of this kind in Jack.

It is a great while since I felt the grind of bone under my saw,' he added, smiling with anticipation.