Various

“ Conversation in the streets of London has never been easy; not, at any rate, until the small hours, when the best of it is done. But it becomes even more complex when one of the talkers is pressed for time and wants a taxi, and disengaged taxis are as rare as new jokes in a revue. ”

“ The Heavies, for instance. The Heavies warped themselves laboriously into position behind our hill, disguised themselves as gooseberry bushes, and gave an impression of the crack of doom at 2 A.M. one snowy morning.
Our mess immediately broke out into St. Vitus's dance, and William piped all hands on deck.
The Skipper, picturesquely clad in boots (gum, high) and a goat's skin, flung himself on the east wing, and became an animated buttress. Albert Edward climbed aloft and sat on the tin lid, which was opening and shutting at every pore. ”

“ Under the impression that this is merely the vivid dream that he had been promised, he himself takes part in the living drama, playing the noble rôle of an exceptionally white man. In the course of it he exchanges pledges of eternal love with Aloney the heroine. Finally, in a spasm of heroic self-sacrifice, he takes poison with the alleged purpose of saving the heroine's life. We never quite gather how his suicide should serve this end, but then the whole atmosphere is charged with that obscurity which is the very breath of the film-drama. ”

“ The whole camp was connected with the outer world by a pathway of ammunition boxes, laid stepping-stone-wise; we went to and fro, lepping from box to box as leps the chamois from Alp to Alp. Should you miss your lep there would be a swirl of mud, a gulping noise, and that was the end of you; your sorrowing comrades shed a little chloride of lime over the spot where you were last seen, posted you as "Believed missing" and indented for another Second-Lieutenant (or Field-Marshal, as the case might be) .
Our mess was constructed of loosely piled shell boxes, and roofed by a tin lid. ”

“ But the film itself, when we got to it, was excellent fooling, and the reconstruction of the original drama at Dorking-in-the-Wild-West was really delightful. You can easily guess that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY, as a cinema hero, very conscious of his heroism ("it's a way we have in Montague Square") , but always comfortably aware that in a dream, as he imagines it to be, he can well afford to make the handsomest of sacrifices, had a great chance. ”

“ Whenever the field guns in our neighbourhood did any business, the tin lid rattled madly and the shell boxes jostled each other all over the place. It was quite possible to leave our mess at peep o'day severely Gothic in design, and to return at dewy eve to find it rakishly Rococo.
William, our Transport Officer and Mess President, was everlastingly piping all hands on deck at unseemly hours to save the home and push it back into shape; we were householders in the fullest sense of the term. ”

“ There are the familiar scenes of a plot to hang the girl's lover, swiftly alternating with scenes of her progress on horseback through the primeval forest, and concluding with her arrival just in time to shoot the villain and untie the noose that encircles her lover's carotid.
On the return of the party from the cinema, Mortimer John describes to Anthony the powers of a drug which induces the most vivid of dreams. He, John, had once been in Anthony's pitiful case, and through the services of this drug had achieved his quest of the ideal woman. ”

“ Just plank down your money and take what they give you. That's my motto."
"No doubt," I said; "that's all very well for you. You aren't the head of the household, with all its cares depending on you. Heads of households ought-to know their exact position." ”

“ Imagine us facing a wind from the east composed of steel filings and all uncharity. We are somewhere in Chelsea, and for some reason or other, or none at all, I am accompanying him.
He (looking at his watch) . I've got to be at Grosvenor Gardens by half-past one and there's not a taxi anywhere. We must walk fast and perhaps we'll meet one. ”

“ Briefly—for it is a long and elaborate story—his scheme is to choose a charming girl, and make a film drama round her. Anthony, with family, is taken to see the show and occupies the best box in the Prince of Wales's Theatre, from which, after a little critical comment upon us in the audience, he falls in love with the heroine. It is the typical film of lurid life on a Californian ranch, and might almost have been modelled on one of Mr. Punch's cinema burlesques. ”

“ Nevertheless I feel sure that he has within him the qualities that go to make a great novelist, and that if he will free himself from certain marked prejudices his future lies straight and clear before him. ”

“ For the rest, the picture of the "artistic" household in which the children grew up, of their managing mother, and the slightly soured and disappointed painter their father, is drawn vividly enough. But what unamiable people they all are! ”

“ We all turned out and miserably surveyed the ruins. What had done it? We couldn't guess. The field guns had gone to bye-bye, the Heavies had gone elsewhere. Hans, the Hun, couldn't have made a mistake and shelled us? Never! It was a mystery; so we all lifted up our voices and wailed for William. He was Mess President; it was his fault, of course.
At that moment William hove out of the night, driving his tent before him by bashing it with a mallet.
According to William there was one, "Sunny Jim," a morbid transport mule, inside the tent, providing the motive power. ”

“ The worst of a play in which one is conducted out of ordinary life into the regions of improbability by processes of which every step has to be just conceivably possible, is that the conscientious development of the scheme is apt to be tedious. ”

“ A taxi, obviously full of people, approaches and passes, the driver casting a pitying glance at my poor signalling friend.
He. I thought it was free.
I. The flag was down.
He. I couldn't be sure. What were you saying? Sorry.
I. Oh, only about those tailors. If you really want to change, you know, I could——
He. Do you mind walking a little faster?
I (mendaciously) . Not at all. I could give you my card, don't you know. But of course you might not like them. Tastes differ. To me they seem to be first-rate, as tailors go. ”

“ JONES has always a keen eye for the picturesque and even humorous aspects of the tragedy; he has a quick sense of the effective which enables him to touch in many haunting pictures—the delusive peace of a sunny Autumn day among the Bosnian mountains ”

“ Super-Char. Of course I could not dream of taking you
Without one, so there's nothing more to do.
These women—'ow they spoil one's temper! Pah!
Hi! (she hails a passing taxi) Drive me to the nearest cinema. ”

“ It was not till about the middle of the play, and after a narcotic had been administered to him, that Anthony got there; but we were in Wonderland almost from the start, without the aid of drugs. For we were asked to believe that Mr. CHARLES HAWTREY was a visionary, amorous of an ideal which no earthly woman could realise for him. Occasionally he had caught a glimpse of it in the creations of Art—at the Tate Gallery or Madame TUSSAUD'S or the cinema ”

“ Life is not worth living just now.
I. They're best for trousers, I should say. Their overcoats——
He (pointing up side-street) . Isn't that one there? Hi, taxi! Good heavens, that other fellow's got it. We really must walk faster. If there isn't one on the rank in Sloane Square, I'm done. If there's one thing I hate it's being late. Besides, I'm blamed hungry. When I'm hungry I'm miserable till I eat. No good to anyone. ”

“ Anthony, greatly intrigued, consents to swallow a sample of the potion. It is a simple narcotic, and under its influence he is conveyed, in a state of coma and a suitable change of apparel, into the heart of Surrey, where at sunrise he is restored to animation and has the scenes of the evening's drama re-enacted before his eyes, as originally filmed for exhibition. ”

“ One may accept his main point of view, yet be offended sometimes by his details. But the fact remains that in Geoffrey Battersby he has given us a piece of character-drawing almost flawlessly perfect. ”

“ I leave open the question whether or not I have reported the real terms of our conversation, merely reminding you that two men together, removed from the frivolity of women, tend, even in the street and when the thermometer is below freezing-point, to a high seriousness rare when the sexes are mingled. ”

“ An' the first person I met in Liverpool was the young woman I 'ad the ring of.
"'Where's my ring?' she says, before I'd time to look round.
"Now, I never was one as liked 'avin' words with a woman, so I pitched her a nice yarn about the cache I 'ad at the back o' my bunk, an' 'ow I vallied 'er ring that 'igh I stowed it there to keep it safe, an' 'ow I'd slid down the anchor cable an' swum ashore an' left everything I 'ad behind me, I was that red-'ot for a sight of 'er. ”

“ We 'ad a long passage of it 'ome, a 'undred-and-sixty days from Portland, Oregon, to London River, an' what with thinkin' of the thumpin' lump o' pay I'd have to draw an' one thing an' another, I clean forgot all about the ring I'd left cached in the little place back o' my bunk yonder. ”

“ If marriages are made in heaven these respectable young fellows have selected a really promising postal address.
"Nine petty officers were landed from the damaged German destroyer V69 and brought to the Willem Barrentz Hotel, Ymuiden, to-night. My correspondent engaged them in conversation at a late hour. After some Dutch Bock beer they rapidly recovered their spirits and began to sing Luther's well-known hymn, 'Ein Feste Bung.'"—Provincial Paper. ”

“ They're not on the streets, anyway; then where are they? One never sees a yard full of them, but they must be somewhere. It's a scandal—a positive outrage.
I. Their overcoats can be very disappointing. I don't know how it is, but they don't seem to understand overcoats. But they're so good in other ways, you know, that really if you are thinking——
He. Here's one, really empty. Hi! Hi! Taxi! ”