on death by a mob
Death to the assassin! I fear nothing could save you from the mob, Comrade Parker. I seem to see them meditatively plucking you limb from limb. "She loves me!" Off comes an arm. "She loves me not!" A leg joins the little heap on the ground. That is how it would be. [psmith journalist]
on psmith's appearance
Go and see the animals, and remember me kindly to the Peruvian Llama, whom friends sometimes told me I resemble in appearance. [psmith journalist]
on grammar
A voice from the room called up to Psmith.
'Say!'
'You have our ear,' said Psmith.
'What's that?'
'I said you had our ear.'
'Are youse stiffs comin' down off out of dat roof?'
'Would you mind repeating that remark?'
'Are youse guys goin' to quit off out of dat roof?'
'Your grammar is perfectly beastly,' said Psmith severely.
'Hey!'
'Well?'
[psmith journalist]
on name calling
From this point forward the march of events were rapid
Mr. Coston, rising, asked Mr. Dawson who he thought, Mr. Dawson, was.
Mr. Dawson, extinguishing his cigarette and placing it behind his ear, replied that he was the fellow who could bite his, Mr. Coston, head off.
Mr. Coston said: 'Huh?'
Mr. Dawson said: 'Sure.'
Mr. Coston called Mr. Dawson a pie-faced rubber-necked four-flusher.
Mr. Dawson called Mr. Coston a coon.
And that was where the trouble really started.
[psmith journalist]
on the subway
Conversation on the Subway is impossible. The ingenious gentleman who constructed it started with the object of making it noisy. Not ordinarily noisy, like a ton of coal falling on to a sheet of tin, but really noisy. So they fashioned the pillars of thin steel, and the sleepers of thin wood, and loosened all the nuts, and now a Subway train in motion suggests a prolonged dynamite explosion with the voice of some great cataract. [psmith journalist]
on hearing
Comrade Windsor was known to the Indians as Boola-Na-Ba-Gosh, which, as you doubtless know, signifies Big-Chief-Who-Can-Hear-A-Fly-Clear-Its-Throat. I too can hear as well as the next man. [psmith journalist]
