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.

`` I could use some help '', Morgan said finally, `` but I can't afford to pay you anything.

You fell down in front of the house, and I carried you in.

I gave you a drink and then you went to sleep ''.

`` 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 ''.

I saw you driftin away -- but I tried.

And you wanted no part of me when I had so much to give.

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

`` I made you what you are '', Gavin whispered.

`` I made you so you could stand up.

I made you a man ''.

`` That quirt -- I ought to use it on you, where it would do the most good.

`` I thought I told you to stay home ''.

I don't know what makes you think you can get away with this kind of business, and I don't care about that, either.

`` I won't even try to thank you ''.

He said in a studied voice, `` I didn't do it for you.

I remember being told it would happen so fast people would think it took place overnight.

In the brief moment I had to talk to them before I took my post on the ring of defenses, I indicated I was sickened by the methods men employed to live and trade on the river.

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 ; ;

When we `` forced '' individuals to assume the corporate structure by means of taxes and other legal statutes, we adopted what I would term `` pseudo-capitalism '' and so took a major step toward socialism.

I took one step eastward.

Seeing their hesitation, I said, `` Well, until I have permission to enter Germany, or a visa to re-enter France, I shall be obliged to remain here on the line between two countries '', whereupon I moved to the side of the road, parked my backpack against the small guardhouse on the sidewalk, sat down, took out my typewriter, and began typing the above conversation.

All this remembering took place the other night when I had supper with the Ziegfeld Girls at the Beverly Hills Club.

I took the pail and shovel and went out on the porch.

I guess fooling Hans and me took doing.

I took him by the shoulders.

In my letters I took on a personality that differed from the self I knew in real life.

The letters took their source from a stream of my imagination in which I was transformed into a young man not unlike my bunkmate Eliot Sands -- he of the porch steps anecdotes -- who smoked cigarettes, performed the tango, wore fifty dollar suits, and sneaked off into the dark with girls to do unimaginable things with them.

I asked him if he took seeds from his own plants.

I really loved that boy, and, in a feverish attempt to preserve our marriage and to try to revive the wonderful, wonderful person Letch had once been, I took my troubles to Momma, hoping that her earthy advice would help me.

I took a deep breath and an even deeper swallow of my drink, and said, `` I admit that going back to Ralph Waldo Emerson for humor is like going to a modern musical comedy for music and comedy ''.