G. B. Lancaster

“ Exhaustion and trouble had weakened his fibres.
“How is a man to tell a chap that a girl loves him without pretending to know?” he said.
“He generally doesn't,” said I. “He lets the other chap find out for himself.”
“But when he doesn't know if the other chap wants to find out?”
“I give it up,” I said.
“You can't. I've got to know—now.”
“Billy,” I said, “in a Latin sentence all the verbs are at one end, and the rest of the parts of speech are at the other. They may be very good parts of speech, but they're no earthly use without the verbs. Give me the verbs, please.” ”

“ I understood that Dickson was the other man. There is always another man when the first man's eyes look as Billy's did.
“Dickson made a joke of it,” said Billy. “He even got Mrs. Terris to stop kicking up a row. ”

“ Girls' clothes aren't built for that kind of work. We had to take 'em all through.... Dickson was looking after his sister. She wouldn't let him go, because she said Terris was no more good than a sick headache. And,” said Billy sternly, “Dickson was quite right to look after his sister. She was his own flesh and blood.”
“Of course,” said I, and wondered. Dickson is not the sort of man who requires championing by other men.
“I had pulled them all up through the cut,” said Billy. “All but—Miss Lestrange. ”

“ I said to Dickson, as we lifted the limp thing between us. “Hearts don't break at his age—or at any other age either, for that matter. But if you or I came through our first fight as well as Billy has done, we're pretty decent sorts on the whole. An' you'll have to interview us both, Dickson, before you call on Miss Lestrange.” ”

“ We got 'em up through the cut one by one, and dragged 'em along to the air. It was dark as death, and the roof was close down over our heads—if we'd died there, I don't believe our souls could have got out. ”

“ She had fainted, or struck her head on something. She wouldn't be noticed, as she didn't make a fuss, and Dickson wouldn't know. A fellow can't go shouting out a girl's name in a crowd.”
I knew that Billy had wanted to shout a girl's name that day. ”