Page "Damon Runyon" Paragraph 26

Runyon almost totally avoids the past tense ( it is thought to be used once, in the short story " The Lily of St Pierre ", and once in " The Idyll of Miss Sarah Brown " ), and makes little use of the future tense, using the present for both.

He also avoided the conditional, using instead the future indicative in situations that would normally require conditional.

An example: " Now most any doll on Broadway will be very glad indeed to have Handsome Jack Madigan give her a tumble.

" ( Guys and Dolls, " Social error ").

There is an homage to Runyon that makes use of this peculiarity ( Chronic Offender by Spider Robinson ) which involves a time machine.