John Dickson Carr (1906–1977)

amok with bug-powder guns, tried to poison him and finally threatened him with razors. Indeed, an unprejudiced listener would have decided that the situation aboard the Queen Victoria was past hope. - the ship's captain summarizes the mayhem of events on board his ship.

“You get somet’ing to gag him wit’ till he cool down, or he call de chief mate and den maybe we iss all in de brig." “do you t’ank we are right, or iss dere a mistake? Dat wass no yoke, what dey tell us. If dey say dere is nobody missing, den ay don’t see how dere is somebody missing. Maybe we talk about a murder and dere is no murder.”

"'Auld Ayr, wham ne'er a town surpasses,'" announced Dr. Kyle, with a gesture that indicated him to be a local boy and proud of it, "'for honest men and bonnie lasses'! Aye! A statement ye ken, Mr. Morgan, frae the wairks o' the great Scottish poet, Rabbie Burrrns. Sit down Mr. Morgan. And perhaps yell tak a drap o' whusky, eh? 'The souter tauld his queerest stories__.'"

“So! So! You have trieda to de-ceive me, eh? You have a trieda toa deceive Signor Benito Furioso Camposozzi, eh? Sangua della madonne, I feex you! You tella me he eesa all-right, eh? Haah! What you call all-aright, eh? I tell you, signorina, to youra face, he eesa DRUNK!”

“Eh, bien, eh bien! Encore tu bois! Toujours tu bois! Ah, zut, alors!” She became cutting. “Tu m’a donné votre parole d’honneur, comme un soldat de la France! Et qu’est-ce que je trouve? Un soldat de la France, hein! Non!” She drew back witheringly. “Je te vois en buvant le GIN!”

Each of his trio had consumed exactly one bottle of champagne; and, while he would have scorned the imputation that he could become the least sozzled on a quart of fizz, he could not in honesty deny certain insidious manifestations. For example, it seemed to him that he was entirely without legs, and that his torso must be moving through the air in a singularly ghostly fashion;