'I have not seen you for three days, if not four!' 'No; I've begun to train,' said he gravely.

'I want to see how long a fellow could hold on to life on three pipes of Cavendish per diem.

I take it that the absorbents won't be more cruel than a man's creditors, and will not issue a distraint where there are no assets, so that probably by the time I shall have brought myself down to, let us say, seven stone weight, I shall have reached the goal.' This speech he delivered slowly and calmly, as though enunciating a very grave proposition.
'What new nonsense is this?
Don't you think health worth something ?' 'Next to life, unquestionably; but one condition of health is to be alive, and I don't see how to manage that.

Look here, Dick, I have just had a quarrel with my father; he is an excellent man and an impressive preacher, but he fails in the imaginative qualities.

Nature has been a niggard to him in inventiveness.