The Mind of Mr. J. G. Reeder quotes

Reeder was capable of breaking the law—quite. At the same time there were many people who formed an altogether wrong conception of J. G.’s harmlessness as an individual. And one of these was a certain Lew Kohl, who mixed banknote printing with elementary burglary.

Threatened men live long, a trite saying but, like most things trite, true.

In a score of cases, when Mr. J. G.

“Brains—not many but some!” said Bride, breathing heavily. “You cut out Reeder—he’s hell and poison, and if you don’t know it you’re deaf! Scared him? You big stiff!

He’d cut your throat and write a hymn about it.

”

Get his stuff if you can—I’ll bet it’s all invested in real estate, and you can’t lift houses—but don’t talk about it. I like you, Lew, up to a point; you’re miles before the point and out of sight. I don’t like Reeder—

I don’t like snakes, but I keep away from the Zoo.

”

“

Payday for the troupe, Mr. Lomer⁠—or do you call it ‘treasury’? My theatrical glossary is rather rusty.

”

Reeder returned to his chief with a report that added nothing to the sum of knowledge. In a week the theft of Mr. Billingham passed from scare lines to paragraphs in most of the papers—Billingham had made a perfect getaway.

In the bright lexicon of Mr. J. G. Reeder there was no such word as holiday.

Even the Public Prosecutor’s office has its slack time, when juniors and sub-officials and even the Director himself can go away on vacation, leaving the office open and a subordinate in charge. But to Mr. J. G.

So also does the cigarette of Egypt preserve its finest bouquet for such as smoke it in the lounge of a Cairo hotel.

Crime is yet another quantity which does not bear transplanting.

The American safe-blower may flourish in France just so long as he acquires by diligent study, and confines himself to, the Continental method.

Oh, yes, I remember: the proprietor of the sawmill tried to get the young lady to marry him by threatening to send her father to prison. That has been done hundreds of times—only in a worse way.

There is really nothing very extravagant about a melodrama except the prices of the seats, and I usually get my tickets free!

”

Despite her assurance, he went slowly home with an uneasy feeling that her name had in some way been compromised.

And in melodrama, when a heroine’s name is compromised, somebody has to marry her.

That was the disturbing thought that kept Mr. Reeder awake all night.

The spirit of exploration has ruined more promising careers than drink, gambling or the smiles of women.

Generally speaking, the beaten tracks of life are the safest, and few men have adventured into the uncharted spaces in search of easy money who have not regarded the discovery of the old hard road whence they strayed as the greatest of their achievements.

“So is Reeder,” he said ominously. “

That man is a genial mamba!

Never seen a mamba? He’s a nice black snake, and you’re dead two seconds after he strikes!”

Possibly I did say that. Mr. Liski will be a long time in hospital, I hear? That is a pity.

I should never forgive myself if my incautious words resulted in poor Mr. Liski being taken to the hospital⁠—alive!

”

In the days of Mr. Reeder’s youth, which were also the days when hansom cabs plied for hire and no gentleman went abroad without a nosegay in the lapel of his coat

, he had been sent, in company with another young officer from Scotland Yard, to arrest a youthful inventor of Nottingham who earned more than a competence by methods which were displeasing to Scotland Yard.

“

I wish I had never known Mrs. Carlin⁠—my acquaintance with her introduces that element of coincidence which is permissible in stories but is so distressing in actual life.

It shakes one’s confidence in the logic of things.”

“

You cannot make any positive of a negative,

” said Mr. Reeder carefully. “London is a large place full of strange, mad people who live such—um—commonplace lives that the wonder is that more of them do not disappear in order to do something different from what they are accustomed to doing.”

“You cannot make any positive of a negative,” said Mr. Reeder carefully. “

London is a large place full of strange, mad people who live such⁠—um⁠—commonplace lives that the wonder is that more of them do not disappear in order to do something different from what they are accustomed to doing.

”

Mr. Reeder considered for a moment, staring glumly at the carpet.

“I should imagine that they were murdered,” he said, almost cheerfully, and the Prosecutor half rose from his chair.

“You are in your gayest mood this morning, Mr. Reeder,” he said sardonically. “Why on earth should they be murdered?”

But there is a limit to all hero-worship, and when she discovered that Mr. Reeder was in the habit of waiting to escort a young lady to town every day, and frequently found it convenient to escort her home, the limit was reached.

Mrs. Hambleton told her friends⁠—and they agreed⁠—that there was no fool like an old fool, and that marriages between the old and the young invariably end in the divorce court (December v. May and July).

She used to leave copies of a favourite Sunday newspaper on his table, where he could not fail to see the flaring headlines:

“Come, birdie!” he said, with great amiability. “And please don’t annoy me! I am quite capable of sending you back to your friend Mr. Walker.

I am really a most unpleasant man if am upset.

”

“You may go now, Mills,” he said gently. “I rather think that you are infected. That ridiculous piece of oiled silk is quite inadequate—which means ‘quite useless’—as a protection against wandering germs.

You will have scarlet fever in three days, and will probably be dead at the end of the week. I will send you a wreath.

”