on snails

“No I am a lawyer.”
Amelia Bingham uttered a pleased cry.
“Then you can tell me if the woman next door has any right to throw her snails into my garden.”
“None whatever. Legally, snails are wild animals.”
“What ought I to do?”
“Throw them back.”
[bachelors anonymous]

on cyril pemberton

His was a face that could never have launched anything like a thousand ships, and something – possibly an elephant – appeared to have sat on it and squashed it. No one broad-minded will allow himself to be prejudiced against a fellow man because the latter has a squashed face, but this squashed face had in addition a grim menacing look, such as is so often seen on the faces of actors playing bit parts in gagster films, and – possibly inadvertently – he gave the impression that it would take very little to give him offense. He was carrying in his hand a bunch of roses. [bachelors anonymous]

on a difficult situation

It is never agreeable for a man who is engaged to one girl and has just proposed to another to find himself in the company of both of them. [bachelors anonymous]

on haircuts

“That’s what he’s doing.”
“And getting his hair trimmed into the bargain.”
“You consider that bad?”
“Don’t you?”
“I must say it struck me as sinister.”
“Nothing could be more so.”
[bachelors anonymous]

on the mysterious midget

I wonder some mystery writer doesn't make it the setting for a thriller. This stall I'm sitting in. The perfect place for finding a corpse underneath. A small corpse, of course. A midget, in fact, and one that had stunted its growth by cigarette smoking in boyhood. His size enabled him to hide in the villain's homburg hat and he overheard the villain plotting, but unfortunately he sneezed and was discovered and bumped off. [bachelors anonymous]