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"My dear Horace!" The Bishop of Godalming's voice was properly horror-stricken; but there was a certain unctuous relish in it.
Nobody in the house—I recollect it now—nobody in the house except gas, and that has not been turned on. That's Emsworth!"
All, he perceived, was not yet lost. Baxter the watchdog must retire, to be succeeded by Baxter the sleuthhound.
For the Doctor Watsons of this world, as opposed to the Sherlock Holmeses, success in the province of detective work must always be, to a very large extent, the result of luck.
The female of the species is more deadly than the male. Probably she makes a better purloiner of scarabs.
There was very little cover in the room, even for so small a fugitive as a shoe. He raised the tablecloth and peered beneath the table. "Are you looking for Mr. Beach, sir?" said Ashe. "I think he has gone to church."
"Are you satisfied now, my dear Baxter," said the earl, "or is there any more furniture that you would like to break? You know, this furniture breaking is becoming a positive craze with you, my dear fellow. You ought to fight against it.
He brushed a bead of perspiration from his face with the back of his hand. Unfortunately, he used the sooty hand, and the result was too much for Lord Emsworth's politeness. He burst into a series of pleased chuckles.
These things happened and one had to accept them. He himself had once suffered in much the same way, the gem of his collection having been removed almost beneath his eyes in the smoothest possible fashion.
Woman is invading man's sphere more successfully every day; but there are still certain fields in which man may consider that he is rightfully entitled to a monopoly—and the purloining of scarabs in the watches of the night is surely one of them.
Aline was puzzled. She was conscious of a fit of depression for which she could in no way account. She had a feeling that all was not well with the world, which was the more remarkable in that she was usually keenly susceptible to weather conditions and reveled in sunshine like a kitten.
The qualities that Ashe loved in her—her strength, her capability, her valiant self-sufficingness—were the very qualities which seemed to check him when he tried to tell her that he loved them.
"Why? Why? What a beast of a word that is—the detective's bugbear.
Perhaps the greatest hardship in being an invalid is the fact that people come and see you and keep your spirits up. The Honorable Freddie Threepwood suffered extremely from this.
All these years he had wanted to meet a detective; and now that his wish had been gratified the detective was detecting him!
What a gang! And the best blood in England! If that's England's idea of good blood give me Hoboken!
"Well, this affair of Aline, for instance. It's so big it makes one feel as though the whole world had altered. I should like nothing to happen ever, and life just to jog peacefully along. That's not the gospel I preached to you in Arundell Street, is it!
"Do you ever get moods when life seems absolutely meaningless? It's like a badly-constructed story, with all sorts of characters moving in and out who have nothing to do with the plot. And when somebody comes along that you think really has something to do with the plot, he suddenly drops out. After a while you begin to wonder what the story is about, and you feel that it's about nothing—just a jumble."
"'She travels fastest who travels alone,'" misquoted Joan. "What is the good," said Ashe, "of traveling fast if you're going round in a circle?
You think there is something tremendous just round the corner and that you can get it if you try hard enough. There isn't—or if there is it isn't worth getting. Life is nothing but a mutual aid association.
