Sinclair Lewis

“ I'm not normally a first-name-snatcher, but I do seem to have fallen into saying 'Milt.' Night!"
⁠As she undressed, in her tent, Claire reflected, "He won't take advantage of my being friendly, will he? Only thing is---- I sha'n't dare to look at Henry B. when Milt calls me 'Claire' in that sedate Brooklyn Heights presence. The dear lamb! Lonely afternoons----!" ”

“ A garage man can trail along behind another car and figger out, figure out, just about what kind of a person the driver is from the way he handles his boat. Now you bite into the job. You drive pretty neat--neatly. You don't either scoot too far out of the road in passing a car, or take corners too wide. You won't be fussy. But still, I suppose you'll be glad to be back among your own folks and you'll forget the wild Milt that tagged along----"
⁠"Milt--or Mr. Daggett--no, Milt! ”

“ They're the only friends I've got that have, oh, I suppose it's what they call culture."
⁠In a long monologue, uninterrupted by Claire, he told of his affection for the Schoenstrom "prof" and his wife. The practical, slangy Milt of the garage was lost in the enthusiastic undergraduate adoring his instructor in the university that exists as veritably in a teacher's or a doctor's sitting-room in every Schoenstrom as it does in certain lugubrious stone hulks recognized by a state legislature as magically empowered to paste on sacred labels lettered "Bachelor of Arts." ”