E. W. Hornung

“ Luckily for me, the first person I saw was an old friend who has just turned up at this hotel; she put me right, and I had my first sound laugh since I got here. It is a great thing to strike a friend in a place like this. I believe you once met a soldier man named Vereker, an old school-fellow of mine, at my rooms in town? Well, this is his sister, and we were tremendous pals when I used to stay with him in the holidays a thousand years ago; now she’s here with their old father, a decrepit curmudgeon who chains her to his side, but tells me between ourselves that she’s engaged to be married. ”

“ They never seem to me to catch anybody nowadays. I only hope the rascal won’t fall in with Ruth; she’s gone off on a long walk by herself—went without her lunch, if you please, and left me to get mine by myself. She might as well be married and done with me.'
“The rascal asked in which direction she had gone, but that the old curmudgeon could not say; nor has it anything to do with the case, my dear Bruce, though I feel more than ever that she must be having a precious thin time of it with the exacting old gentleman. ”

“ Fact, my dear fellow, has once more demonstrated its superiority to fiction even of the ultra-Wells or imitation-Anstey type.
“In spite of all the thousands of words I fired at you yesterday, you must bear with another thousand if you want to know the astounding conclusion of the whole matter. But don’t you show this lot to the Vivid. It is for the private eye of the pal whom I value more than any agent. ”

“ In the single minute of my absence the affair had entered on a new phase; our sturdy little Yorkshire porter had made his appearance with the can of water which had seemed the one thing needful. Yet it is not so easy to pour water into a pillar-box; the slot slopes the wrong way, and the porter could only dash cans of water at the gaping mouth, and more ran down outside than in. Relays of cans were requisitioned before that pillar-box ceased to belch forth smoke and steam; and by that time it seemed to me that the fire had practically burnt itself out. ”

“ If I had forced this thing upon the Vivid, I should not have been able to hold up my head while their Christmas Number was on the stalls, and they would never have given me another contract.
“I wish to goodness I had never accepted this one, or at least that I had not been such a fool as to take on the job in this penitential spot, in the intervals of a cure which most people find quite hard enough work in itself. It doesn’t give the cure a chance, while the cure is simply fatal to one’s work. ”

“ That’s one reason why I’ve written it at such length for your benefit; you might get whole chunks typewritten (again, of course, without giving me away) and try them on the Vivid. It’s not what they asked for, and they needn’t have it if they don’t like; but, if they do, let me have all this back and I can work it up in no time. It’s simply a question of treatment now.
“What would you say? The more or less innocent criminal is always a fascinating fellow, though I can’t profess to handle him like Anstey in ‘The Black Poodle,’ or Wells in some of his short stories. ”

“ My old friend Squire Vereker was particularly scandalised and incensed; he thumped the floor with the stick on which he leans, and said he would give something to see the ruffian flogged within an inch of his life.
“'That’s what we want in these days,' said he: 'the cat, and plenty of it, instead of which there’s hardly any. This modern craze of coddling criminals is all confounded nonsense. It breeds ’em, sir; they thrive and multiply on it. ”