The Girl Gave Him A

The English May Not Always Be The Best Writers In The World, But They Are Incomparably The Best Dull Writers.

It Was A Cool Day And Very Clear. You Could See A Long Way-but Not As Far As Velma Had Gone.

Love Interest Nearly Always Weakens A Mystery Because It Introduces A Type Of Suspense That Is Antagonistic To The Detective's Struggle To Solve The Problem. It Stacks The Cards, And In Nine Cases Out Of Ten, It Eliminates At Least Two Useful Suspects. The Only Effective Love Interest Is That Which Creates A Personal Hazard For The Detective - But Which, At The Same Time, You Instinctively Feel To Be A Mere Episode. A Really Good Detective Never Gets Married.

It Is A Mass Language Only In The Same Sense That Its Baseball Slang Is Born Of Baseball Players. That Is, It Is A Language Which Is Being Molded By Writers To Do Delicate Things And Yet Be Within The Grasp Of Superficially Educated People. It Is Not A Natural Growth, Much As Its Proletarian Writers Would Like To Think So. But Compared With It At Its Best, English Has Reached The Alexandrian Stage Of Formalism And Decay.

I Think A Man Ought To Get Drunk At Least Twice A Year Just On Principle, So He Won't Let Himself Get Snotty About It.