Stephen Leacock

“ The Sheik will recognize an overcoat that De Vaux is wearing, and complications will arise in the matter of Hairy Hank deceased. Will this result in the death of the boy lieutenant? Answer. No. By this time De Vaux has realized that the reader knows he won't die and resolves to quit the desert. The thought of his mother keeps recurring to him, and of his father, too, the grey, stooping old man--does he stoop still or has he stopped stooping? At times, too, there comes the thought of another, a fairer than his father; she whose--but enough, De Vaux returns to the old homestead in Piccadilly. ”

“ She has no use for sunburn, doesn't care for tan; she is going to marry a duke and the boy lieutenant is no longer in it. The real trouble is that the modern novelist has got beyond the happy-marriage mode of ending. He wants tragedy and a blighted life to wind up with. Question. How will the book conclude? Answer. Oh, De Vaux will go back to the desert, fall upon the Sheik's neck, and swear to be a second Hairy Hank to him. ”

“ It is her, and it is him, and it is them. That girl hasn't waited fifty pages for nothing. Question. You evidently guess that a love affair will ensue between the boy lieutenant and the peerless girl with the broad feet. ”