Fer-de-Lance (Nero Wolfe, #1)

by Rex Stout

Wolfe was as nice as pie that evening. I got home in time to eat dinner with him. He wouldn’t let me say anything about White Plains until the meal was over; in fact, there wasn’t any conversation to speak of about anything, for he had the radio going. He was accustomed to say that this was the perfect era for the sedentary man; formerly such a man could satisfy any amount of curiosity regarding bygone times by sitting down with Gibbon or Ranke or Tacitus or Greene but if he wanted to meet his contemporaries he had to take to the highways, whereas the man of today, tiring for the moment of Galba or Vitellius, had only to turn on the radio and resume his chair.

Instead I’ll answer your question. I shall not see Mr. Anderson for three reasons: first, being still in bed I am undressed and in an ugly temper. Second, you can do our business with him just as well. Third, I understand the technique of eccentricity; it would be futile for a man to labor at establishing a reputation for oddity if he were ready at the slightest provocation to revert to normal action. Go. At once.”