Could She *be* Anymore Out Of My

James Cain - Faugh! Everything He Touches Smells Like A Billygoat. He Is Every Kind Of Writer I Detest, A Faux Naix, A Proust In Greasy Overalls, A Dirty Little Boy With A Piece Of Chalk And A Board Fence And Nobody Looking. Such People Are The Offal Of Literature, Not Because They Write About Dirty Things, But Because They Do It In A Dirty Way.

She Hung Up And I Set Out The Chess Board. I Filled A Pipe, Paraded The Chessmen And Inspected Them For French Shaves And Loose Buttons, And Played A Championship Tournament Game Between Gortchakoff And Meninkin, Seventy-two Moves To A Draw, A Prize Specimen Of The Irresistible Force Meeting The Immovable Object, A Battle Without Armour, A War Without Blood, And As Elaborate A Waste Of Human Intelligence As You Could Find Anywhere Outside An Advertising Agency.

Undoubtedly The Stories About Them [hard-boiled Detectives] Had A Fantastic Element. Such Things Happened, But Not So Rapidly, Nor To So Close-knit A Group Of People, Nor Within So Narrow A Frame Of Logic. This Was Inevitable Because The Demand Was For Constant Action; If You Stopped To Think You Were Lost. When In Doubt, Have A Man Come Through A Door With A Gun In His Hand.

When I Left Merle Was Wearing A Bungalow Apron And Rolling Pie Crust. She Came To The Door Wiping Her Hands On The Apron And Kissed Me On The Mouth And Began To Cry And Ran Back Into The House, Leaving The Doorway Empty [...] I Had A Funny Feeling As I Saw The House Disappear, As Though I Had Written A Poem And It Was Very Good And I Had Lost It And Would Never Remember It Again. (p. 262)

He (the Agent) Just Takes Ten Per Cent Of Your Life.