`` I don't have many strays coming to my front door '', he said.

`` I mean, we don't have any way to get there and we can't expect you to quit work just to take us to town ''.

There's someone there I have to see.

I have to think about it.

We'll still have the rifle, and I might be able to round up some more.

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.

I have it with me, right here.

) hung on a hook on the wall, and underneath it I could see his tie, knotted, ready to be slipped over his head, a black badge of frayed respectability that ought never to have left his neck.

I was at once disappointed, although just what I had expected him to look like I could not have explained.

As he lowered himself on the chair behind his desk I wondered what this dapper, slightly ridiculous man could possibly have to do with the workings of the hall.

But, by gosh, I want him and I'm going to have him!!

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

`` I have a little job for you, Charlie.

`` You and I have a little talking to do, Jess.

I would have foregone my romantic chances rather than leave a friend sweltering and dusty and -- Well, at least I wouldn't have shouted back a taunt.

At once my ears were drowned by a flow of what I took to be Spanish, but -- the driver's white teeth flashing at me, the road wildly veering beyond his glistening hair, beyond his gesticulating bottle -- it could have been the purest Oxford English I was half hearing ; ;

I wouldn't have known the difference.

`` I won't force Beth to come against her will.

`` Damned if I will.

How far I knew will shortly become apparent.

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.

If I even hint at it do you think it will matter that you are his nephew -- and not even a blood nephew ''??

`` I don't want to be thrown out and I don't think I will.

When I show up he will know you are a good wife to have told him about it ''.

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

`` If you will pardon, I think it would be better if not.

`` I will give Mr. Roy his due for this dive.

I will make him distributor for all of Florida -- a big market.

His heart was pounding like a mighty dynamo and he was trying to think, his mind seeming to scream at him like a hurt or frightened child, `` How will I do it??

I suppose the reason is a kind of wishful thinking: don't talk about the final stages of Reconstruction and they will take care of themselves.

The design is determined emotionally: `` I must reach into myself for the spring that will send me catapulting recklessly into the chaos of event with which the dance confronts me ''.

`` What I am saying does not mean that there will henceforth be no form in art.

I will assume that we are all aware of the continuing struggle, with its limited and precarious success, toward conservatism.

I will mention two volumes of specific comment on this malaise that appeared last year.

I will reserve discussion of it for a moment, however, to return to President Kennedy.

Hence the prime issue, as I see it, is whether a democratic or free society can master technology for the benefit of mankind, or whether technology will rule and develop its own society compatible with its own needs as a force of nature.

Then, after overtures to accept a settlement and go through with a divorce, Miriam gave a ghastly echo of Mrs. Micawber by suddenly stating, `` I will never leave Mr. Wright ''.

Miriam said that she must be assured that `` that other woman, Olga, will not be in luxury while I am scraping along ''.

For pride's sake, I will not say that the coy and leering vade mecum of those verses insinuated itself into my soul.

God in Heaven, I can't refuse you now.

`` I don't mind washing dishes now and then '', he said pleasantly.

This desire, I went on, growing voluble as my conviction was aroused, had mounted at such a rate recently that I now found its realization necessary not only to my physical but also to my spiritual wellbeing.

`` Hell, that's all right, buddy '', the Indian ( I now guessed ) said.

There had been a good second or two during which my muffler had been blowing out, and now I was certain I'd seen her somewhere before.

I said, `` O.K., so now only Blake knows.

If it were not for an old professor who made me read the classics I would have been stymied on what to do, and now I understand why they are classics ; ;

and now I think we can use the knowledge they passed on to us.

`` And now '', said Tilghman with deadly calm, `` I'll repeat what I said.

I been riding train for a ways now ''.

I followed them in the jeep and now they did not care.

His London contract was rescinded, and now, he explains cheerfully, as a bright smile lightens his intense, mobile face, `` I conduct only one hundred and twenty concerts ''!!

`` I have just come from viewing a man who had made the fortune of his country, but now is working all night in order to support his family '', he reflected.

And so I would only touch upon it now ( much as I have long wanted to write a book about it ).

Both I and my feelings come up out of a chain of events that fan out into the past into sources that are ultimately very unlike the entity which I now am.

The Commission seems to represent the viewpoint of what I would call the unconscious liberal, but not unconscious enough, to invoke the now taboo symbolism of socialism.

If I now risk some comparisons with Sons And Lovers let it be clear that I am not comparing the two works or judging their merits ; ;

Yet this passion for passion, now that I look back on it with passion spent, seems somewhat overblown and operatic, though as a diva Miss Millay perfectly controlled her notes.

I can see us now.

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.