But Johnson couldn't quickly unwire the truck door, and if I escaped, he might suffer.

It was a disturbingly familiar face, too, but I couldn't remember where we had met.

`` I couldn't agree with you more ''.

veal cutlets: `` Oh, I couldn't possibly eat all this ''!!

`` I couldn't write with them in the same room with me, but I could with Harold.

No matter how large the fire, I couldn't seem to shake off the chill that day.

`` You see, once I relinquish the position I've already established here, I couldn't regain it without sacrificing the logic of it ''.

For a while there was such shrill girlish commotion I couldn't have made myself heard if I'd had the equivalent of the message to Garcia.

I couldn't face Thelma after that night.

I couldn't make out what his racket was.

I decided I hated the Pedersen kid too, dying in our kitchen while I was away where I couldn't watch, dying just to entertain Hans and making me go up snapping steps and down a drafty hall, Pa lumped under the covers at the end like dung covered with snow, snoring and whistling.

I couldn't be sure he was still asleep.

`` Why, I couldn't even cook a piece of antelope steak ; ;

I couldn't invite Viola to our house, for Mother snobbishly refused to receive her.

I admired their easy way of doing things but I couldn't escape an uneasiness at their way of always doing the right things.

I couldn't feel at home among them.

She it was who had looked to see if I was wearing shoes upon learning that I couldn't drive.

The charge, I tell you ''!!

For although I had crossed a corner of the hall on my way to the toilet I still could not tell for sure how far to the rear the darkness extended.

I knew that three or four of them were almost always present in the hall, but what they were doing, and exactly where, I could not tell.

I almost didn't tell you ''.

`` I want to tell you something Thomas DeMontez Lord.

`` I really do have something important to tell you, Mr. Scott.

If you tell him I made a pass at you he might think you misunderstood something I said or did, so instead of just telling him I made a pass, say I tried to date you and that you agreed so you could prove to him what a louse I really am.

And I will greatly appreciate it if you will not tell your husband.

But when it happens to you like that, I tell you, and you're a hundred feet from where you thought you were -- well, it makes you think.

If the old fool argues about the price, tell him I shall order my husband not to treat him as a patient any longer.

Said: `` There are things I must tell you about this man you are marrying which he does not know himself ''.

I fled, however, not from what might have been the natural fear of being unable to disguise from you that the things about my bridegroom -- in the sense you meant the word `` things '' -- which you had been galvanizing yourself to tell me as a painful part of your maternal duty were things which I had already insisted upon finding out for myself ( despite, I may now say, the unspeakable awkwardness of making the discovery on principle, yes, on principle, and in cold blood ) because I was resolved, as a modern woman, not to be a mollycoddle waiting for Life but to seize Life by the throat.

`` I've been in government and I can tell some pretty hairy stories about personnel difficulties, so I know what a problem he was ''.

`` I can tell you this much '', he said.

I shall tell of it later on.

As I dug in behind one of the bales we were using as protection, I grudgingly found myself agreeing with Oso's logic, especially when I imagined what would have happened to Missy if Old Knife's large party of screeching warriors had overrun our company.

Next to him was a young boy I was sure had sat near me at one of the trading sessions.

When one of the men in the hall behind us spat on the floor and scraped his boot over the gob of spittle I noticed how the clerk winced.

In the mornings, I was informed, fluorescent tubes, similar to the one above the counter, illuminated the entire hall.

By counting the number of stalls and urinals I attempted to form a loose estimate of how many men the hall would hold at one time.

I had for some time been hoping, in vain, for one of the dim figures to pass between the fan vents and myself.

No one was behind it, but in the rear wall of the office I noticed, for the first time, a door which had been left partially open.

Don't like to bother no one unless we have to, which I figger we do, in your case.

But there's one thing I never seen or heard of, one thing I just don't think there is, and that's a sportin' way o' killin' a man ''!!

Adios '', I said, exhausting my Spanish vocabulary on my host and exchanging one of a scarcely-tapped store of smiles with my host's daughters.

I seized the rack and made a western-style flying-mount just in time, one of my knees mercifully landing on my duffel bag -- and merely wrecking my camera, I was to discover later -- my other knee landing on the slivery truck floor boards and -- but this is no medical report.

Seeming much relieved, she smiled one of those worth-waiting-for smiles, and I smiled all the way into the bedroom.

I worked for my Uncle ( an Uncle by marriage so you will not think this has a mild undercurrent of incest ) who ran one of those antique shops in New Orleans' Vieux Carre, the old French Quarter.

I dismissed these feelings as wishful thinking but I could not get it out of my head that we had a strong physical attraction for one another and we both feared to dwell on it because of our relationship.

I don't even remember who wrote it but it was one of those 15th or 16th century poets.

I felt that he looked at me coldly and appraisingly and seemed to be uncertain what his attitude towards me should be, but he did not say one word which might indicate that he had been told of advances to his wife.

Of course, males play a role there, but believe me when I say you wouldn't enjoy yourself one bit on Eromonga.

I clapped the big man with the bleached hair on his shoulder and said heartily, hoping it would make an impression on the women: `` This one is the maku Frayne.