“In the kindliest spirit I suggest that your eyesight needs medical attention.”
“My eyesight? My eyesight? Do you know who you’re talking to? I am Sahib Biggar.”
“I regret to say that the name is unknown to me. However, Sahib, I can only repeat…”
“In this country I use my title of Captain.”
“Sahib or Captain, I still say that you have made the pardonable mistake of misreading a licence number.”
Before speaking again, Captain Cuthbert Gervase 'Bwana' Brabazon-Biggar was obliged to swallow once or twice, to restore his composure. He also took another nut.
"Look," he said, almost mildly. "Perhaps you're not up on these things. You haven't been told who's who and what's what. I am Captain Biggar - the White Hunter, the most famous White Hunter in all Africa and Indonesia. I can stand without a tremor in the path of an onrushing rhino ... and why? Because my eyesight is so superb that I know ... I know I can get him in that one vulnerable spot before he has come within sixty paces."
“I concede that you may have trained your eyes for that purpose, but, poorly informed as I am on the subject, I do not believe that rhinoceri are equipped with number plates.
Friday, September 17, 2010
Millicent Threepwood
"Ever read Schopenhauer?" she asked, after a silence.
"No."
"You should. Great stuff. Schopenhauer says that all the suffering in the world can’t be mere chance. Must be meant. He says life’s a mixture of suffering and boredom. You’ve got to have one or the other. His stuff’s full of snappy cracks like that. You’d enjoy it. Well, I’m going for a walk. You coming?"
"I don’t think I will, thanks."
"Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide’s absolutely OK. He says Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day."
"What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer."
"I’ve been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one and then another for his prey."
"No."
"You should. Great stuff. Schopenhauer says that all the suffering in the world can’t be mere chance. Must be meant. He says life’s a mixture of suffering and boredom. You’ve got to have one or the other. His stuff’s full of snappy cracks like that. You’d enjoy it. Well, I’m going for a walk. You coming?"
"I don’t think I will, thanks."
"Just as you like. Schopenhauer says suicide’s absolutely OK. He says Hindoos do it instead of going to church. They bung themselves into the Ganges and get eaten by crocodiles and call it a well-spent day."
"What a lot you seem to know about Schopenhauer."
"I’ve been reading him up lately. Found a copy in the library. Schopenhauer says we are like lambs in a field, disporting themselves under the eye of the butcher, who chooses first one and then another for his prey."