Unseen in the background, Fate was quietly slipping lead into the boxing-glove.

He was a Frenchman, a melancholy-looking man. His aspect was that of one who has been looking for the leak in a gas pipe with a lighted candle.

I'm not absolutely certain of the facts, but I rather fancy it's Shakespeare who says that it's always just when a fellow is feeling particularly braced with things in general that Fate sneaks up behind him with the bit of lead piping.

It seems to be one of Nature’s laws that the most attractive girls should have the least attractive brothers. Fillmore Nicholas had not worn well. At the age of seven he had been an extraordinarily beautiful child, but after that he had gone all to pieces; and now, at the age of twenty-five, it would be idle to deny that he was something of a mess.

In a series of events, all of which had been a bit thick, this, in his opinion, achieved the maximum of thickness.

The least thing upset him on the links. He missed short putts because of the uproar of the butterflies in the adjoining meadows.