Winter 1996/1997 Mystery Quotation Item

 This item continues Grex's ongoing Mystery Quotation Game.  If you can guess
 the author of a quotation, you get to enter the next quotation.
 
 It's currently my turn, & I've apparently been stumping everyone.  I'm
 going to enter all the responses for the current round as response #1,
 and then enter some more quote after that.

234 responses total.

> #191 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Mon Dec  9 21:18:49 1996:
>  OK, here goes.  Since there are a few names which would give the thing
>  away pretty much instantly to many people who may be stumped otherwise,
>  I'm going to x them out, in the time-honored fashion.
>  
>       Mr. Theocritus Way, this chronicler must now hasten to establish,
>       was not the bookie immortalized in the foregoing anecdote.  He
>       was, however, a man who had concentrated on the subject of Odds
>       with an almost comparably classic single-mindedness.
>  
>           Indeed, one of his oldest but perennially profitable
>       discoveries in the field was directly tied to the same numerical
>       quibble between Odds and Evens.  At any bar where he might be
>       chumming for potential suckers, when the inevitable dispute
>       eventually arose as to who should buy another drink, he would
>       promptly suggest that they match for it.  The mark could hardly
>       refuse this, and would take from his pocket the conventional
>       single coin.  Mr. Way would then say, with a skillfully intangible
>       sneer:  "The hell with that penny-matching stuff.  That's how
>       some guys got rich making double-headed coins.  Let's play Monte
>       Carlo Match."
>  
>           He always had some high-sounding name, suggestive of
>       authenticity and tradition, for the games that he invented.
>  
>           "What's that?" the innocent would ask.
>  
>           Mr. Way would haul out a handful of small change, which he
>       jingled noisily in his closed fist to leave no doubt that it was
>       a fair quantity.
>  
>           "I got a mess of chickenfeed here," he would explain, with
>       labored patience for such ignorance.  "You grab a stack from your
>       own pocket.  We slap it all on the bar--two stacks.  Suppose your
>       stack turns out to be an odd number, and the total of our two
>       stacks is also an odd number, you win.  Suppose you got an odd
>       number, and the total of us two is even, you lose.  Or vice
>       versa.  That's one bet you can't fix, because neither of us knows
>       how many coins the other's going to have."
>  
>           The mark might win or lose the first time, on this fair
>       fifty-fifty basis.  Mr. Way rather liked him to win, because that
>       made it somewhat easier to insist on another match for money
>       instead of drinks.  And one game easily led to another, and
>       another, for increasing stakes.  If the dupe insisted on them
>       taking turns as matcher, Mr. Way would take his honest
>       fifty-fifty chance.  But after the first time, the victim never
>       had a chance to match to match the total of their combined hands
>       in oddness or evenness.
>  
>           Whenever the other was trying to "match," Mr. Way simply took
>       care to have some odd number of coins in his own stack.
>       Therefore if the mug also had an odd number, the total had to be
>       even; if the mug had an even number, the joint total had to be
>       odd.  Stated this way, any intelligent reader will see that the
>       stupe would have had the same fifty-fifty chance of finding
>       somebody with a right foot growing naturally on his left leg.
>       But it was a gimmick which had paid Mr. Way more cash dividends
>       than Albert Einstein ever earned from the Theory of Relativity.
>  
>           The fond parent who had him baptized Theocritus was only
>       another of the human race's uncounted casualties to misguided
>       optimism.  Even in his tenderest years, his contemporaries
>       declined to accord him even the semi-dignified contraction of
>       "Theo."  They abbreviated him swiftly and spontaneously to
>       "Tick."  The record does not show whether this was initially due
>       to his instinct for stretching credit to the snapping point
>       whenever he was supposed to do the paying, to his physically
>       insignificant stature, or to his extraordinarily irritating
>       personality; or to a combination of all three.  But the monicker
>       clung to him like flypaper into the middle-aged maturity where
>       his path crossed [xxxx]'s, which is the only encounter this short
>       story is seriously concerned with.
>  
>           However, in contradiction of some recent propaganda which
>       purports to attribute all adult crime to the cancerous
>       frustration of the growing boy, it must be instantly said that
>       "Tick" Way consistently collected above-average grades, and
>       revealed an especial talent for mathematics.  But instead of
>       being thus inspired to think of a career in science or
>       engineering, his temperament had been impressed only by the
>       magnificent possibilities of pigeon-plucking that were opened up
>       by the magical craft of figures.
>  
>  (I'm hoping that no one gets it before I have a couple more cracks at
>  some of Tick Way's more interesting scams, not to mention extracts
>  from other works.)
> 
> #192 ExtraSaurus(omni) on Mon Dec  9 22:51:18 1996:
>   Jimmy Breslin
> 
> #193 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Tue Dec 10 06:09:49 1996:
>  Eh?  (Whoever that is, it's not him.)
> 
> #194 John H. Remmers(remmers) on Tue Dec 10 06:16:08 1996:
>  Off-the-wall guess: Isaac Asimov.
> 
> #195 Daniel L. Marchant(creole) on Tue Dec 10 09:49:49 1996:
>  Anthony Trollope.
> 
> #196 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Tue Dec 10 12:59:10 1996:
>  Heh.  Nope, not Trollope.  Not Asimov, either, though I think I see where
>  *that* one comes from.  (John is one of the folks here whom I feel
*moderately* >  sure has read something by this author.  The quoted work,
however, is a tiny >  bit out of the author's main groove ... and for that
matter the author's style >  evolved considerably over a long career ... so I
don't think John has any >  unfair advantage.) >  > #197 Nick Cheese, Internet
Detective.(omni) on Tue Dec 10 13:13:47 1996: >    Jimmy Breslin is an
irrasable NYC columnist, much akin to Mike Royko, only >  not as snooty. >  ;)
>  > #198 little rolled-up pillbug(adania) on Tue Dec 10 19:22:04 1996: >  For
some reason that quote reminded me of james joyce... >  > #199 Dave
Lovelace(davel) on Wed Dec 11 07:45:59 1996: >  Not *that* Jimmy, either.  (It
would be interesting if you'd said what the >  reason was ... )  Let's see ...
I'm going to skip past one example >  of Tick Way's technique which involves a
problem I think most of you >  will be aware of: the probability of two people
in a random group >  having the same birthday.  (The mathematics are in fact
fully >  explained in the story in such a way as to not bog the plot down > 
too much.)  Tick's technique is reasonably consistent.  (I'm also >  going to
allow the protagonist his first name, I think, but leave >  out full names &
giveaway descriptions.) >   >            He had even graver doubts when he saw
the obnoxious operator >       again the next day.  Wandering up to the
Futuramic Terrace in search >       of a long cooling potion after a couple of
hours of swimming and >       sunning himself on the beach, he spotted the
little man sitting at >       one of the tables by the pool, unselfconsciously
exposing as much of >       his bulbously misproportioned physique as could not
be contained in >       a pair of garishly flowered Hawaiian shorts, and
holding forth to a >       pimpled and sulky-mouthed young man and two
tough-looking >       middle-aged women with the unmistakable air of dames who
had never >       yet lost an elbowing contest at a bargain counter. >         
  The table, like all others on the terrace, sported a cloth >       patterned
in red, white, and blue stripes about three inches wide; >       and Mr. Way
was flipping cigarettes a foot or two into the air so >       that they fell on
it at various random angles. >            "In Pakistan, where it's practically
the national game, they >       call it Tiger Toss--from the board they play
on, which has black and >       yellow stripes.  And they use carved ivory
sticks instead of >       cigarettes.  But the measurements are relatively just
the same: the >       sticks are exactly as long as the stripes are wide.  Like
on this >       cloth, the stripes happen to be just as wide as one of these > 
     cigarettes is long.  See?" >            He demonstrated. >           
"Then you toss a stick, or a cigarette, onto the board, or the >       cloth,
and see how it lands.  It has to spin in the air and turn >       over so
there's no chance of controlling it.  If it comes down >       completely
inside a stripe, you win.  If it falls across a dividing >       line, you
lose.  Like this. . . . But wait till you hear the catch." >            [Simon]
waited, at a diffident distance towards the background, >       but no farther
off than other patrons or passers-by whose attention >       had been caught
and held by Mr. Way's provocatively high-decibel >       style of conversation.
>           "The pitch they give the peasants is that this is the rajah's > 
        way of distributing charity so as to do the most good.  You know--if > 
     you give a rupee to every starving slob, they'll all be just as > 
     hungry again tomorrow; but playing Tiger Toss, the lucky ones could > 
        make a pot of money.  And the guy who's running the game--who's got > 
        a concession from the rajah, of course--shows 'em how easy it is. > 
        'Look,' he says, 'even if a stick falls at right angles to the > 
       pattern, there's still room for it inside a stripe.  And the more it > 
        falls at an angle, the more room there is.'"  Mr. Way illustrated the >
      fact with a cigarette.  "'Until if it was parallel with the stripes, > 
        there'd be room for eight or nine of 'em to lie in there side by > 
        side without touching the dividing line,' says this official gypper. > 
     But they never got me to play.  No, sir."  Mr. Way's insufferably > 
       malevolent stare swung him around like a scythe.  "Before I'd buy a > 
        tale about a philanthropic rajah, I'll believe in a big-hearted > 
        Shylock." >            Without giving anybody time to draw a deep
breath, he picked up >       another cigarette and went on:  "Right away, *I*
can see how anybody >       with a grain of sense would look at it.  Either the
stick gotta fall >       at right angles to the stripes--like this--or it
doesn't.  It's as >       simple as that.  One or the other.  A fifty-fifty
chance.  And once >       it falls like this, square across the stripe, if it's
only a hair >       off of dead center, see, it has to touch the line or cross
over the >       next stripe.  Now, there's so little chance it'll fall dead
center, >       one in a million maybe--you can forget it.  So it still boils
down >       to whether it falls square or not." >            "Now wait a
minute, smarty-pants," riposted one of the women, >       in an almost equally
strident voice.  "If that's what you call using >       a grain of sense,
saying it's fifty-fifty if it falls this way or >       two hundred other
ways--" >            "At least, there are ninety degrees in a right angle," > 
        corrected the pouty young man.  "So if you said eighty-nine other--" > 
          "Are you ribbing me, trying to sound like those other benighted > 
        heathens?" snarled Mr. Way.  "Or if that's what you call your > 
      intelligent opinion, would you back it up with any more than hot > 
       air?"  Even from his attenuated costume he was able to produce a wad > 
        of currency which he slammed on the table with a vehemence that > 
        almost equalled a slap in the face.  "You want to bet even money > 
        with me?  I'll say the cigarette touches the line, you can do the > 
        tossing, and we'll see who comes out ahead.  And I'll fade anyone > 
        else who wants to come in." >            Simon adroitly evaded the
contentious bantam's challenging >       eye, and drifted on to find himself a
vacant table, where he asked a >       mildly befogged waiter for a Pimm's Cup,
a pencil, and a piece of >       paper.  When all these items were finally
delivered, he sipped the >       cold ambrosial drink and went soberly to work
with the other >       articles.  By that time, a "Tiger Toss" school was in
full and >       audible session on the other side of the terrace, with Mr. Way
the >       self-appointed banker daring all and sundry to prove themselves as
>      ignorant as the credulous Pakistanis. >            The techniques of
bogus backgrounding, Machiavellian >       misdirection, and a gadfly approach
that could be relied on to make >       almost anyone but a lower-case saint
too furious to think straight, >       were the same as the night before.  But
the specific probability >       problem, shorn of the artistic camouflage,
Simon soon found, would >       be unscientifically called a snorter. >        
   Since it is not the purpose of this story to double as a first > 
  primer of higher mathematics, which it may already have started to > 
     sound like, the reasoning by which [Simon] solved this rather > 
   interesting equation must be omitted from the present text.  To > 
   anyone who has not set at least one foot in the mystic realm of > 
   trigonometry it would be meaningless.  Those who have studied such > 
      subjects, of course, may recognize it at once under the name of > 
      Buffon's Problem.  [Simon] took much longer to wring the correct > 
       answer out of his rusty recollections, and when he had done it he > 
        had even more respect for the perverse astuteness of Mr. Way. >   > 
(At this point another, related plot thread reasserts itself; in the >  course
of the dialogue it's revealed that "the odds are almost >  exactly seven to
four against the stick, or the cigarette, falling >  cleanly inside a stripe." 
I think I verified this myself the first >  time I ever read the story.)  There
are several clues visible in this >  extract, BTW. >  > #200 Dave
Lovelace(davel) on Sat Dec 14 08:54:48 1996: >  No guesses?  Let's see...to
spoil any surprise on the end of this story: >  the protagonist entices Way
into a game (a variant on the "Monty Hall >  Problem", discussed at great
length a few years back here on Grex, BTW) - >  with the odds in Way's favor
... but rigs the game (sleight-of-hand, >  at which (like *everything* else)
this protagonist is unreasonably >  skilled) so that Way in fact loses his
shirt.  Keeping a chunk of his >  gains for himself, he returns the rest to one
of Way's victims. >   >  Let's try an excerpt from another story, in some ways
more typical.  The >  *style* is again normal for this period of the author's
writing - to my >  ear distinctly different from his earliest works, which I
may yet have >  time to quote at the present rate ... >   >       [Simon] met
Otis Q. Fennick on the fire escape of the Hotel >       Mercurio, in San
Francisco, at about four o'clock in the morning. >            Like many another
eminently simple statement, the foregoing now >       involves an entirely
disproportionate series of explanations. >            [Simon (full name)] was
staying at the Mercurio, which was a >       long way from attaining the
luxurious standards of the kind of hotel >       that he usually frequented,
because when he headed for San Francisco >       he had neglected to inform
himself that a national convention of the >       soft-drink and candy industry
was concurrently infesting that >       otherwise delightful city.  After
finding every superior hostelry >       clogged to the rafters with
manufacturers and purveyors of excess >       calories, he had decided that he
was lucky to find a room in any >       hotel at all. >            The room
itself was one of the least desirable even under that >       second-rate roof,
being situated at the back of the building >       overlooking a picturesque
alley tastefully bordered with garbage >       cans and directly facing an
eye-filling panorama of grimy windows >       and still grimier walls
appertaining to the edifice across the way. >       The iron steps of the
outside fire escape partly obscured this >       appealing view by slanting
across the upper half of the window; and >       it was there that Simon first
heard the stealthy feet of Mr. >       Fennick, and a moment later, being of a
curious disposition, saw >       them through a gap at the edge of the
ill-fitting blind.  ... it had >       been very late when he got home, and he
had only just shed most of >       his clothes and brushed his teeth when he
heard the furtive >       scuffling outside which was the surreptitious descent
of Mr. >       Fennick. >            In such a situation, the ordinary
sojourner in even a second- >       rate hotel would either have remained
gawking in numb perplexity or >       have started howling an alarum, with or
without the intermediacy of >       the house phone.  Not being ordinary in any
way, [Simon (full name)]  >       rolled up the shade with a craftsman's touch
which almost >       miraculously silenced its antique mechanism--he had
already switched >       off the lights in order to see out better, and the
window had never >       been closed since he accepted the room, on account of
the stuffiness >       of its location--and swung himself across to the nearest
landing of >       the fire escape with the deceptively effortless grace of a
trained >       gymnast, having reacted with such dazzling speed that he
arrived >       there simultaneously with the cautiously groping prowler. > 
             "Me Tarzan," said [Simon] seductively.  "You Jane?" >           
His voice should not have been at all terrifying--in fact, it >       was
carefully pitched low enough to have been inaudible to anyone >       who had
not already been disturbed by Mr. Fennick's rather clumsy >       creeping. 
But Mr. Fennick was apparently unused to being accosted >       on fire
escapes, or perhaps even to being on them at all; at any >       rate, it was
immediately obvious that no intelligible sound was >       going to emerge for
a while from the fish-like opening of his mouth. >       It became clear to
Simon that the acquaintance would have to be >       developed in a more
leisurely manner and less unconventional >       surroundings. >           
"You'd better come in before you catch cold or break your >       neck," he
said. >            Mr. Fennick gave him no struggle.  He was a small man, and >
      [Simon]'s steel fingers almost met their thumb around the upper arm > 
        that they had persuasively clamped on.  He squeezed his eyes very > 
        tightly shut, like a little boy, as Simon half lifted him across the > 
     space to the window sill, which was really no more than a long > 
    stride except for having about forty feet of empty air under it. >         
  With the blind drawn and the lights on again, [Simon] inspected >       his
catch with proprietary interest.  Mr. Fennick wore a >       well-pressed brown
double-breasted suit of conservative tailoring, a >       white stiff-collared
shirt, a tie very modestly patterned with >       neutral greens, and even a
clean felt hat of sedate contour.  To >       match his skinny frame, he had a
rather wizened face with a sharp >       thin nose, a wide thin mouth, and
lively intelligent brown eyes when >       he opened them.  He looked much more
like a member of some Chamber >       of Commerce and pillar of the Community
Church than a felonious >       skulker on fire escapes. >            "You
know," said [Simon] at last, "I don't think you're a >       burglar after all.
 And this would be a rather desperate hour for a >       Peeping Tom.  I guess
you must be a candy cooker." >            "That's right," Mr. Fennick said
eagerly.  "The Fennick Candy >       Company.  You must have heard of it." > 
             He whipped out a wallet and extracted a card from it with an > 
        automatic dexterity which even his temporarily shattered condition > 
        could not radically unhinge.  He went on, in a kind of delirious > 
        incantation: "Jumbo Juicies, Crunchy Wunchies, Crackpops, Yummigum-" > 
          "That sounds like a powerful spell," said [Simon] respectfully. > 
        "now are you supposed to vanish in a puff of smoke, or am I?" >        
   "I wish I could," said Mr. Otis Q. Fennick, President, >       forlornly. > 
 >  Um, folks, let's *try* to extract some clues from these things.  Sex, > 
nationality, dates of the author?  Genre?  There are some big hints in >  these
extracts, BTW.  One hint: all of the "[Simon]"s (except the couple >  that say
"full name" are descriptions; we have here an author who has a >  consistent
protagonist (in every work I'm aware of, BTW), whom he >  *usually* tags with a
title not a name.  (I'll even add that the title >  appears, in incidental
contrast, somewhere in these excerpts. >  > #201 nsiddall(nsiddall) on Sun Dec
15 16:44:36 1996: >  These are enjoyable quotes, but I have no idea about the
author.  The sort >  of excessively articulate style reminds me of
something--Sinclair, Thurber, >  Waugh...who is the author of that book "Mr.
Blandings Dream house?  (I know >  I'm only supposed to get one guess, so those
aren't guesses.) >  > #202 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Mon Dec 16 06:52:33 1996: > 
(But since no one else is guessing, I'll categorically say that none of those >
 folks is it.  We're operating at a somewhat less rarified level.) >  > #203
nsiddall(nsiddall) on Mon Dec 16 11:07:18 1996: >  Actually, I think the
obscure literary processing center of my brain spit >  out Upton Sinclair when
it really meant Sinclair Lewis.  That's not really >  a guess, either, since
I'm pretty sure this character is not related in any >  way to Babbit.  That
Monty Hall puzzle seems to keep reviving itself, like >  the Good Times
virus--I'll be interested to find out where it was described >  in a work of
fiction.  Sometime in the 40s, perhaps? >  > #204 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Tue
Dec 17 06:45:07 1996: >  A bit later.  All of the stories in the collection I'm
currently looking at >  are copyright in the years 1956-1959.  About that time
(I *think*) there were >  movies based on this author's work.  The protagonist,
under the description >  I've been avoiding, was better known than the author -
***much*** better >  known.  And his renown was based largely on some of the
author's much >  earlier works, but the author continued cranking out short
stories at least >  into the late 60s (and collecting income from stories being
written >  by others, involving this character, even longer).  (I repeat that I
know >  of *no* works by this author which do *not* involve this character as >
 protagonist.) >   >  Let's see ... jumping back in on Otis Q. Fennick's
troubles a bit later ... >   >            Meanwhile, [Simon] had in his pocket
the card which the >       uncooperative bartender had given him.  It might not
be much, but >       it was something.  And at least it might help to pass the
time >       constructively. >            Scoden Street was a narrow turning
off one of the drabber >       stretches of Geary, given over to a few small
dispirited >       neighborhood shops jumbled among other nondescript buildings
of >       which some had been converted into the dingier type of offices and >
      some still offered lodgings of dubious desirability.  Number 685 > 
       seemed to combine the two latter types, for a window on the street > 
        level was lettered with the words VERE BALTON STUDIOS on the glass, > 
        behind which an assortment of arty enlargements were attached to a > 
        velvet backdrop, while on the entrance door was tacked a large > 
       printed card with the legend APARTMENT FOR RENT. >            The door
was open, though only a couple of inches. >            Simon pushed it with his
toe and went in. >            He found himself in a small dark hallway, at the
rear of which >       a flight of worn wooden stairs started upwards, doubtless
to the >       vacant apartment.  Immediately on his right was a door, also
ajar, >       with a shingle projecting from the lintel on which the VERE
BALTON >       STUDIOS sign was repeated.  He went through into a sort of
reception >       room formed by the space between the shoulder-height backdrop
of the >       front window and a set of full-length drapes which shut off the
rest >       of the premises.  It contained a shabby desk and three equally > 
        shabby chairs, but none of them was occupied. >            "Hi," said
[Simon], raising his voice.  "Anybody home?" >            There was no reply,
or even the sound of movement.  But the >       long drapes were not fully
drawn, and through the aperture he could >       see a yellowness of artificial
light. >            He went to the opening and looked into the small studio > 
        equipped with a dais, a tripod camera, and the usual clutter of > 
        lamps, screens, and props to sit on or lean against.  But nobody was > 
     utilizing the props, and the only lamp alight was a bare bulb > 
   hanging from the ceiling. >            Simon stepped on through the
curtains.  The near corner inside >       had been partitioned off with
Beaverboard into a cubicle which from >       the sinks and shelves of bottles
that could be seen through its wide >       open door was obviously used as a
darkroom; but no one was using it. >       At the opposite end of the studio
was another door, half open. >            "Anybody home?" Simon repeated. > 
             Nobody acknowledged it. >            He crossed the studio
quietly, cutting a zigzag course between >       the paraphernailia, and his
second tack put him at an angle from >       which he could see the body that
lay on the floor of the back room. >            It belonged to a fat man of
medium height with dirty gray hair >       and a rather porcine face to which
death had not added any dignity. >       There were three bullet holes in the
front of his patchily reddened >       shirt, loosely grouped around the VB
monogram placed like a target >       over his heart, and two of them were
ringed with the powder burn and >       stain of almost contact range. >       
    Simon bent and touched the back of his hand to one of the >       flabby
cheeks--not to verify the fact of death, which was >       unnecessary, but to
determine if it were very recent.  The skin was >       cold. >  > #205 John H.
Remmers(remmers) on Wed Dec 18 11:19:26 1996: >  <remmers ponders, but so far
hasn't come up with anything...> >  > #206 little rolled-up pillbug(adania) on
Wed Dec 18 15:13:48 1996: >  mathematical tourist?? >  > #207 Dave
Lovelace(davel) on Thu Dec 19 09:48:06 1996: >  At this point in his career,
the protagonist could be described as something >  of a professional tourist,
officially retired from his earlier life, yes. >  The mathematics is just that
one story ... but one thing I particularly like >  about this author is a kind
of willingness to take almost any kind of idea >  & use it well.  There's one
story (which I personally don't especially like) >  in which the protagonist
saves the world from being taken over by termites >  (complete with Mad
Scientist who has been giving termites the tools of >  civilization), for
example.  I'm going to run out & grab another story >  collection for extracts
from a couple more stories ... >   > 
   "_Wine,_that_maketh_glad_the_heart_of_man_," quoted [Simon's full > 
     name], holding his glass appreciatively to the light.  "The Psalmist > 
        would have had things to talk about." >            "It would have been
a love match," said Lieutenant Wendel, like >       a load of gravel. >        
   "Up to a point," Simon agreed.  "But then he goes on: > 
 _And_oil_to_make_him_a_cheerful_countenance_.  Here we start asking > 
     questions.  Is the prescription for internal or external > 
      application?  Are we supposed to swallow the oil, or rub it on the > 
        face? . . . I am, of course, quoting the Revised Version.  The King > 
        James has it _Oil_to_make_his_face_shine_, but the revisers must > 
        have had some reason for the change.  Perhaps they wanted to restore > 
     some element of ambiguity in the original, dividing the plug equally > 
        between mayonnaise and Max Factor." >            The detective stared
at him woodenly. >            "I've wondered a lot of things about you,
[Simon].  But what a >       guy like you wants with that quiz stuff is beyond
me." >            Simon smiled. >            "A man in my business can never
know too much.  A brigand has >       to be just a little ahead of the
field--because the field isn't just >       a lot of horses trying to win a
race with him, but a pack of hounds >       trying to run him down.  Quite a
lot of my phenomenal success," he >       said modestly, "is due to my memory
for unconsidered trifles." >            Wendel grunted. >   >  Frankly, that
conversation goes on interestingly, and another little >  fact (or rather
non-factual legend) about wine which gets brought in >  makes a significant
appearance at the climax.  *Very* economical story >  construction, very
pleasantly done.  But a bit long to quote.  (I may >  yet eventually quote the
next page or so, & maybe from the climax, too. >  We'll see.) >   >  Let's try
the beginning of yet one more story.  This one is offbeat enough >  to have
been anthologized somewhat; I've seen it several places. >   >       [Simon's
full name] looked up from the frying pan in which six >       mountain trout
were developing a crisp golden tan.  Above the gentle >       sputter of
grease, the sound of feet on dry pine needles crackled >       through the
cabin window. >            It didn't cross his mind that the sound carried
menace, for it >       was twilight in the Sierras, and the dusky calm stirred
only with >       the rustlings of nature at peace. >            [Simon] also
was at peace.  In spite of everything his enemies >       would have said,
there actually were times when peace was the main >       preoccupation of that
fantastic freebooter; when hills and blue sky >       were high enough
adventure, and baiting a hook was respite enough >       from baiting policemen
or promoters.  In such a mood he had jumped >       at the invitation to join a
friend in a week of hunting and fishing >       in the High Sierras--a friend
who had been recalled to town on >       urgent business almost as soon as they
arrived, leaving [Simon] in >       by no means melancholy solitude, for
[Simon's full name] could >       always put up with his own company. >        
   The footsteps came nearer with a kind of desperate urgency. >       Simon
moved the frying pan off the flames and flowed, rather than >       walked, to
where he could see through windows in two directions. >            A man came
out of the pines.  He was traveling on the short >       side of a dead run,
but straining with every gasping breath to step >       up his speed.  He came,
hatless and coatless, across the >       pine-carpeted clearing toward the
cabin door. >            He burst through it; and in spite of his relaxation
[Simon] >       felt a kind of simmer of anticipating approval.  If his
solitude had >       to be intruded on, this was the way it should happen. 
Unannounced. >       At a dead run. >            The visitor slammed the door,
shot the bolt, whirled around, >       and seemed about to fold in the middle. 
He saw [Simon].  His jaw >       sagged, swung adrift on its hinges for a
moment, then imitated a >       steel trap. >            After the sharp click
of his teeth, he said:  "How did you get >       in here?  Where's Dawn?" > 
             "Dawn?" Simon echoed lazily.  "If you're referring to the rosy- > 
     fingered goddess who peels away the darkness each morning, she's on > 
        the twelve-hour shift, chum.  She'll be around at the regular time." > 
          I never dreamed you here," the man said.  "Who are you?" >           
"You dropped a word," [Simon] said.  "'I never dreamed you >       *were* here'
makes more sense." >            "Nuts, brother.  You're part of my dream, and I
never saw you >       before.  You don't even have a name.  All the others
have, complete >       with backgrounds.  But I can't place you.  Funny,-- Look
here, >       you're not real, are you?" >            "The last time I pinched
myself, I yelped." >            "This is crazy," the man muttered. >   >  (That
one is atypical, I must add.  The earlier one is however fairly >  typical of
its period.  (The stories in *this* particular collection >  are a bit earlier,
but still not the earliest vintage: all in the range >  1933-1948 (copyright
dates).) >  > #208 Daniel Gryniewicz(dang) on Fri Dec 20 13:01:09 1996: >  Is
this the Steel Rat stuff?  I admit, I don't know the author off hand.  I'd > 
have to go to my parents house and look. >  > #209 Jan Wolter(janc) on Fri Dec
20 13:17:29 1996: >  The author of the Stainless Steel Rat stories was Harry
Harrison.  The >  protagonist was named Simon, I think. >  > #210 Jan
Wolter(janc) on Fri Dec 20 13:18:50 1996: >  However, I don't think this is
Harry Harrison.  Too many contemporary >  references for this to be a Sci Fi
novel. >  > #211 Dave Lovelace(davel) on Mon Dec 23 15:43:55 1996: >  Jan is
correct - both in that this is not Harrison, & in that Harrison, not >  the
author of the current quotes, wrote the Stainless Steel Rat books.  I gave > 
dates, Dan ... 1930s, 1950s ... >  > #212 little rolled-up pillbug(adania) on
Tue Dec 24 01:31:47 1996: >  !tel sekari >  goddamn grex i sbeing slower than
molasses...I will see you to morr^?^?^?^?tomorrow sometime then... >  > #213
back within reach of Grex(davel) on Fri Dec 27 19:12:53 1996: >  I see that no
one's guessing.  I'll try to move this into winter tomorrow, >  get Rane to
link it to books where I can see it.  Will quote more (with even >  more
revealing bits) at the same time, I hope.  Grex was also incredibly slow > 
when I got on Monday (from 300 miles from home) & is noow not exactly > 
blindingly fast ...

Oh my Rex Stout and the narrative sounds like the enimitable archie goodwin..
who worked for <fill in the blank> :-)

NERO WOLF!

OK, jumping maybe a page from where I left off ...

             He went outside.  Through the dusky stillness the far-off
        unseen feet pounded nearer.
             The feet were four.  The men, with mathematical logic, two.
        One might be a jockey, the other a weight lifter.  They tore out
        of the forest and confronted [Simon].
             "Did you see a kind of big dopey-lookin' lug?" the jockey asked.
             [Simon] pointed to the other side of the clearing where the
        hill pitched down.
             "He went that way--in a hell of a rush."
             "Thanks, pal."
             They were off, hot on the imaginary trail, and the sounds of
        their passage soon faded.  [Simon] went inside.
             "They'll be back," he said.  "But meanwhile we can clear up
        a few points.  Could you down a brace of trout?  They've probably
        cooled enough to eat."
             "What do you mean, they'll be back?"
             "It's inevitable," Simon pointed out as he put coffee on, set
        the table, and gathered cutlery.  "They won't find you.  They want to
        find you.  So they'll be back with questions.  Since those questions
        will be directed at me, I'd like to know what not to answer."
             "Who are you?"
             "Who are you?" [Simon] countered.
             "I'm--oh, blast it to hell and goddam.  The guy you're looking
        at is Big Bill Holbrook.  But he's only something I dreamed up.
        I'm really Andrew Faulks, and I'm asleep in Glendale, California."
             "And I am the queen of Rumania."
             "Sure, I know.  You don't believe it.  Who would?  But since
        you've got me out of a tight spot for the time being, I'd like to
        tell you what I've never told anybody.  But who am I telling?"
             "I'm [Simon's full name]," said [Simon], and waited for
        a reaction.
             "No!" Holbrook-Faulks breathed.  "[Simon]!  What beautiful,
        wonderful luck.  And isn't it just like a bank clerk to work
        [Simon] into his dream?"  He paused for breath.  "The Robin Hood
        of Modern Crime, the twentieth century's brightest buccaneer, the
        devil with dames, the headache of cops and crooks alike.  What a
        sixteen-cylinder dream this is."
             "Your alliterative encomia," [Simon] murmered, "leave me as
        awed as your inference.  Don't you think you'd better give out
        with this--er--bedtime story?  Before that unholy pair return with
        gun-lined question marks?"
             The strange man rubbed his eyes in a dazed helpless way.
             "I don't know where to begin," he said conventionally.
             But after a while, haltingly, he tried.

(If no one gets it after *that*, I'd better give up.)

I'll add that this particular story is unique in its weirdness, but is typical
in the way that weirdness showed the author's sheer delight in playing with
an idea.  In this case, the story is rounded off as follows: after more
rather strange interaction and background - in which everyone who learns
Simon's identity reels off the very same list of descriptions given above -
Simon winds up being shot in the chest & dies.  He wakes up in the cabin,
unharmed, with no telltale footprints around or anything (but some
disarrangements of the cabin in evidence which *he* had made during the
course of events), and a particular cameo opal of significance in his
pocket.  He later checks in Glendale, finds Andrew Faulks listed in the
phone book, but is told he had died in a delirium at such-&-such time.
He happens on books in the den while waiting:

             Simon had moved into the house while listening to the tale of
        death and found himself looking off the hallway into a well-lighted
        den.  His keen eyes noted that while most of the shelves were gay
        with the lurid jackets of adventure fiction, one section was devoted
        to works on psychology and psychiatry.
             Here were the tomes of Freud, Adler, Jung, Brill, Bergson
        Krafft-Ebling, and lesser lights.  A book lay open on a small
        reading table.
             [Simon] stepped inside the room to look at it.  It was
        titled _In_Darkest_Schizophrenia_ by William J Holbrook, Ph D.

(About to offer the cameo opal and a question to Mrs Faulks, he
discovers that it has vanished from his pocket.)

Like most of this author's work, especially later on, this particular
story is well built on all levels.  He plays the situation both for
humor and for a kind of eerieness.  I've tried to quote enough to give
the flavor.  Even though the author is now somewhat forgotten as out
of date, and was minor (though quite prolific), he's well worth reading
as light entertainment, & I'm pretty surprised that nobody's come up
with him yet.  There are quite a few clues in what I've entered.

Mel slipped in.  Not Stout.  (Have to cross him off my list of possible
future sources, I guess.)  I like Nero Wolfe pretty well, too.  This character
is rather more all-around competent than Goodwin, and doesn't need anyone
to do his deduction for him.  (The genre is also not the classic detective
story, either, but within the more general crime story field.)

Hmm.  One more thing: by quoting from later stories, I've given grounds for
one misapprehension.  The protagonist's adventures span the globe pretty well,
but though his later career is centered in the US he started off across the
Atlantic.  Had that been clear, Goodwin would have been a most unreasonable
guess (despite Wolfe's forays into Montenegro, one of his birthplaces (and
his most persistently-asserted)).  (I'd speculate that the author
emigrated, but I don't really have any biographical info.)  I'd have to check
to be sure, but I *think* the earliest of these stories were a few years
earlier than _Fer_de_Lance_, Wolfe's first appearance - but yes, this is a
fairly close contemporary, and most of what I said about his writing applies
to Stout as well.  The only reason that it wasn't a *really* good guess is
the absence of Wolfe from everything I quoted.

Hmm, I see Mel jumped in twice - I'd only seen #2 when I posted #5, as
that's the one Picospan told me about.

Well then my next somewhat of a guess would be Robert E. Howard.

Winter agora #22 has been linked to books #57: enjoy, davel!

Not Howard.
Again, the author's name itself is likely to be known to very few.  Simon's
full name to a few more.  The nickname/description I've been representing as
"[Simon]" should be rather better known.

Sounds like The Saint series actually but I haven't the foggiest on who
wrote it.

Arthur C. Clarke wrote a story in which a mad scientist was trying to take
over the world by giving technological secrets to termites, but he doesn't
fulfil any of the other clues.  

Not Clarke.  (I know, you didn't actually guess him, but I'll answer anyway.)

Re #10: I'd suggest finding a library's catalogue on the net somewhere and
searching titles to find the author.  (After all, recognizing the
works without knowing the author is quite likely for the correct answer,
given everything I've said.)

Well if Simon is Simon Templar and we're talking american series at least
then its going to be Leslie Charteris.

Simon is indeed Simon Templar, and Charteris it is.  <whew>

For those unfamiliar (which apparently includes most of everyone reading this
item):  the Saint's early escapades typically involved identifying
particularly odious & vicious villains (many but not all being criminals),
warning them that their ill-gotten gains were such as to demand restitution,
and arranging for such restitution to happen (normally over their dead
bodies).  The warnings were in notes including a little stick figure with a
halo; that probably explains the nickname (though the initials "S.T." may have
suggested it as well.)  Eventually his identity was discovered, the
longsuffering Chief Inspector Teal actually succeeded in arresting him, and
he broke jail long enough to stage a last-minute rescue of the king of England
(a German bomb on the train tracks, during (or soon before?) WWI), and was
pardoned.  Thereafter they never actually managed to pin anything on him. 
He continued however to enforce restitution to victims (or, sometimes, to
charity), deducting his 10% agent's fee of course, as he settled eventually
into the role of globe-trotting tourist.

I think Charteris probably did most everything it's possible to do with the
biter-bit plot device.  I find most of his stories very entertaining, though
rarely more than that.  (But isn't that enough?)  He once engineered a revolt
in a banana-republic dictatorship - I sort of meant to quote that one, too.

Charteris also enjoyed playing with that nickname.  Templar commonly
referred to his opponents (whether police or crooks) as "the ungodly".
Note the phrases "a lowercase saint" and "that unholy pair" in the bits I
quoted.  (I was afraid someone would catch the former, or remember that I 
mentioned the Tic Way story when the Monty Hall problem was discussed here
on Grex a while back.)  In particular, I know remmers has a taste for a
subclass of detective fiction with which this is often lumped in, & I'm
pretty surprised he didn't pick up on this one.

Anyway, olddraco has it.

(For the record, I've never read any Leslie Charteris.)

The Saint was a very popular series both written, tv, and movie. According
to the WWW it was Charteris that had the most exposure as the author. It
was noted that there were several other authors over the years that
also did spin offs.

Now, for the new mystery quote:
"GOD had not answered in the first dream five years before.  He spoke now,
'Make your Resurrection worth my while, you fool! I have gone to great 
expense and even greater pains to give you, and all those other miserable
and worthless wretches, a second chance.'"
"Second chance at what?" Burton said. He felt frightened at what God might
asnwer.  He was much relieved when God the All-Father--only now did Burton
see that one eye of Jahweh-Odin was gone and out of the empty socket glared
the flames of hell--did not reply. He was gone--no, not gone but
metamorphosed into a high gray tower, cylindrical and soaring out of gray
mists with the roar of the sea coming up through the mists."

Sounds almost like Philip Jose Farmer's Riverworld sereis, but I don't
recognize the quote.  Maybe a later book.

Well that sure didn't last long :-)
"To Your Scattered Bodies Go" , wond the Hugo Award for Best Novel
and was published in 1971. Quote was from Page 160, almost at the
end of the book.
Janc has it!

  My blood froze.  My heart sickened.  My brain whirled.  How I had liked this
villain!  How I had admired him!  How my liking and admiration must turn to
loathing and disgust!  I waited for the change.  I longed to feel it in my
heart.  But -- I long and I waited in vain!  I saw he was emptying his
pockets; the table sparkled with their hoard.  Rings by the dozen, diamonds
by the score; bracelets, pendants, aigrettes, necklaces; pearls, rubies,
amethysts, sapphires; and diamonds always, diamonds in everything; flashing
bayonets of light, dazzling me -- blinding me -- making me disbelieve because
I could no longer forget.  Last of all came no gem, indeed, but my own
revolver from an inner pocket.  And that struck a chord.  I suppose I said
something -- my hand flew out.  I can see [deleted] now, as he looked at me
once morew ith a high arch over each clear eye.  I can see him pickout the
cartridges with his quiet cynical smile, before he would give me my pistol
back again.  `You mayn't believe it, Bunny,' said he, `but I never carried
a loaded one before.  One the whole I think it gives one confidence.  Yet it
would be very awkward if anything went wrong; one might use it, and that's
not the game at all, though I have often thought that the murdrer who has just
done the trick must have great sensations before things get too hot for him.
Don't look so distressed, my dear chap; I've never had those senations, and
I don't suppose I ever shall.'
  `But this much you have done before?' I said hoaaarsely.
  `Before?  My dear Bunny, you offend me!  Did it look like a first attempt?
Of course I have done it before.'
  `Often?'
  `Well -- no?  Not often enough to destroy the charm, at all events; as a
matter of fact, unless I'm cursedly ard up.  Did you hear about the Thimbleby
diamonds?  Well, that was the last time -- and a poor lot of paste they were.
Then there was the little business of the Dormer house-boat at Henley last
year.  That was mine also -- such as it was.  I've never brought off a really
big coup yet; when I do I shall chuck it up.

Darn, that sounds familiar. Especially that "Bunny" name. Can't
quite put my finger on it yet, though...

It's not Wodehouse again, is it?

No it isn't Wodehouse, though there are some similarities.  Wodehouse even
has some characters named "Bunny", I think.  However, this is earlier than
Wodehouse.

Cervantes.

Oops, I'd forgotten about this.  No, it isn't Cervantes, though it is a dead
European male.

  "Well, sir, they looked about, an' at larst they give him up for a bad
  job; thought he'd changed his mind an' didn't want to tip the clurk;
  so they shut up the place and come away. An' that's all till about
  'alf an hour ago, when I takes the manager his extry-speshul _Star_,
  in about ten minutes he comes running out with a note an' sends me with it
  to Scotland Yard in a hansom.  An' thats all I know, sir -- straight.
  The coppersis up there now, and the tec. and the manager, and they
  think their gent is about the place somewhere still.  Least, I reckon
  that's their idea; but who he is, or what they want him for, I dunno."

  "Jolly interesting!" said ______, "I'm going up to inquire. -- Come on
  Bunny; there should be some fun."

  "Beg yer pardon, Mr. _____, but you won't say nothing about me?"

  "Not I; you're a good fellow.  I won't forget it fi this leads to sport. --
  Sport!" he whispered, as we reached the landing.  "It looks like precious
  poor sport for you and me, Bunny!"

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I don't know.  There's no time to think.  This, to start with."

  And he thundered on the shut door; a policeman opened it.  Raffles strode
  past him with the air of a chief commissioner, and I followed before the
  man had recovered from his astonishment.  The bare boards rang under us;
  in the bedroom we found a knot of officers stooping over the window-ledge
  with a constable's lantern.  Mackenzie was the first to stand upright,
  and he greeted us with a glare.

  "May I ask what you gentleman what?" said he.

  "We want to lead a hand," said _____ briskly....

View hidden response.

You slipped, Jan.  E. W. Hornung, I think.  (I never heard of him, but I have
a reference work in which he's identified as the author of the Raffles novels,
which I've heard of but never read.)

Yes!  E. W. Hornung and Raffles it is.  Raffles was the original Gentleman
theif and this was one of the earliest crime novels.  I was kind of hoping
someone would guess "Arthur Conan Doyle" from the last quote (though it
doesn't quite sound like him, there are similarities) so I could so "no, not
Doyle, but our author was Doyle's brother-in-law."  Hornung was married to
A. C. Doyle's sister.

Gosh, Dave is good.

Um, Jan, I'd heard the name "Raffles", & you forgot to expurgate it one place.
How good do I have to be to spot that?

Oops.  Drat.

Will enter a quote probably (hopefully) tomorrow morning, if I can remember
any of the things I'd been thinking would be really good.  <sigh>
<considers something **really** obscure>

OK, here goes.  Another that will be too obscure unless the right people are
reading, in which case I have to choose my selections carefully.  There are
several people who I think may instantly recognize certain of this author's
works.

             "We will conclude this first semester of Antiquities 107,"
        Professor Paul Muni said, "with a reconstruction of an average day in
        the life of a mid-twentieth-century inhabitant of the United States of
        America, as Great L. A. was known five hundred years ago.
             "Let us refer to him as Jukes, one of the proudest names of the
        times, immortalized in the Kallikak-Jukes-feud sagas.  It is now
        generally agreed that the mysterious code letters JU, found in the
        directories of Hollywood East, or New York City as it was called
        then--viz, JU 6-0600 or JU 2-1914--indicate in some manner a
        genealogical relationship to the powerful Jukes dynasty.
             "The year is 1950.  Mr. Jukes, a typical 'loner'--i.e.,
        'bachelor'--lives on a small ranch outside New York.  He rises at
        dawn, dresses in spurred boots, Daks slacks, rawhide shirt, gray
        flannel waistcoat and black knit tie.  He arms himself with a Police
        Positive revolver or a Frontier Six Shooter and goes out to the
        Bar-B-Q to prepare his breakfast of curried plankton or converted
        algae.  He may or may not surprise juvenile delinquents or red Indians
        on his ranch in the act of lynching a victim or rustling his
        automobiles, of which he has a herd of perhaps one hundred and fifty.
             "These hooligans he disperses after single combat with his fists.
        Like all twentieth-century Americans, Jukes is a brute of fantastic
        strength, giving and receiving sledge-hammer blows, or being battered
        by articles of furniture with inexhaustible resilience.  He rarely
        uses his gun on such occasions; it is usually reserved for ceremonial
        rituals.
             "Mr. Jukes journeys to his job in New York City on horseback, in
        a sports car (a kind of open automobile), or on an electric trolley
        car.  He reads his morning newspaper, which will feature such stories
        as: 'The Discovery of the North Pole,' 'The Sinking of the Luxury
        Liner _Titanic_,' 'The Successful Orbiting of Mars by Manned Space
        Capsule,' or 'The Strange Death of President Harding.'
             "Jukes works in an advertising agency situated on Madison Avenue
        (now Sunset Boulevard East), which, in those days, was a rough muddy
        highway, traversed by stagecoaches, lined with gin mills and populated
        by bullies, corpses and beautiful night-club performers in abbreviated
        dresses.  Jukes is an agency man, dedicated to the guidance of taste,
        the improvement of culture, the election of public officers and the
        selection of national heroes.
             "His office on the twentieth floor of a towering skyscraper is
        decorated in the characteristic style of the mid-twentieth century.
        He has a roll-top desk, a Null-G, or Free Fall chair and a brass
        spittoon.  Illumination is by Optical Maser light pumps.  Large fans
        suspended from the ceiling cool him in the summer, and an infrared
        Franklin stove warms him in the winter.
             "The walls are decorated with rare pictures executed by such
        famous painters as Michelangelo, Renoir and Sunday.  Alongside the
        desk is a tape recorder, which he uses for dictation.  His words are
        later written down by a secretary using a pen and carbon ink.  (It
        has, by now, been clearly demonstrated that the typewriting machine
        was not developed until the onset of the Computer Age at the end of
        the twentieth century.)
             "Mr. Jukes's work involves the creation of the spiritual slogans
        that uplift the consumer half of the nation.  A few of these have come
        down to us in more or less fragmentary condition, and those of you who
        have taken Professor Rex Harrison's course, Linguistics 916, know the
        extraordinary difficulties we are encountering in our attempts to
        interpret: 'Good to the Last Drop' (for 'good' read 'God'?); 'Does She
        or Doesn't She?' (what?); and 'I Dreamed I Went to the Circus in My
        Maidenform Bra' (incomprehensible).
             "At midday, Mr. Jukes takes a second meal, usually a community
        affair with thousands of others in a giant stadium.  He returns to his
        office and resumes work, but you must understand that conditions were
        not ideal for concentration, which is why he was forced to labor as
        much as four and six hours a day.  In those deplorable times there was
        a constant uproar of highway robberies, hijackings, gang wars and
        other brutalities.  The air was filled with falling bodies as
        despairing brokers leaped from their office windows.  ..."

(This lecture goes on for another page or more, before we actually get
into the action of the story; but I'm tired of typing and that's
enough to give you the idea ... enough for someone who's read the
thing to recognize it, for that matter.)

Obviously an SF selection, but way too obscure for me.  Appears to
be from the 50's or 60's.

This response has been erased.

Haven't read this.  Sounds like it must be the lead-in of a time travel story.
I haven't a good guess, but just to guess something, I'll say Poul Anderson.

Hilarious concept: archaeology based on TV.  I think those famous Maidenform
ads are pretty old, and they were print ads.  But the reference to eating
plankton makes me think it is from the 70s or later.

Sounds like J.G Ballard to me.  Advent of the computer age and plankton
I would say late 60s at the earliest.

Let's see, where to start?  Yes, SF.  Russ is right - Valerie, Nate, &
Matthew wrong - about when.  (The particular collection is copyright 1964.
This is one of the two stories in it which don't list a prior (1953-1959)
copyright from publication in _F&SF_ mag.  Archaeology based on *movies*,
Nate - TV wasn't mentioned.  Not Poul Anderson, not Ballard.  Nowhere near
as significant an author as Anderson.  This author is definitely fairly
weird, but at the time was reasonably well known in the SF world for a
couple of very-widely-anthologized stories and one novel (which came out
in several different forms & under several different names over a period
of years).  The story I'm quoting happens to be one of my favorites
from this author, so I'll quote a bit more, but is *not* particularly
well known.  Time travel comes into it in a peculiar way, but I'd hesitate
to call it a time-travel story as such.  (But the main plot does involve
a couple of people from our time who find themselves stranded there.)
That this one is a mixture of satire, farce, & pure off-the-wall
imagination should show from the following ...

             In the ornate library of the Clifton Webb mansion on Skouras
        Drive, Detective Inspector Edward G. Robinson introduced his
        assistants to the Little Group of Powerful Art Dealers.  His staff was
        lined up before the exquisitely simulated trompe-l'oeil bookshelves,
        and were rather trompe-l'oeil themselves in their uniforms of
        household servants.
             "Sergeant Eddie Brophy, footman," Inspector Robinson announced.
        "Sergeant Eddie Albert, second footman.  Sergeant Ed Begley, chef.
        Sergeant Eddie Mayhoff, second chef.  Detectives Edgar Kennedy,
        chauffeur, and Edna May Oliver, maid."
             Inspector Robinson himself was in the uniform of a butler.  "Now,
        ladies and gents, the trap is baited and set, with the invaluable aid
        of the Police Costume, Prop and Makeup Department, Deputy Commissioner
        Eddie Fisher in charge, than which there is none better."
             "We congratulate you," De Sica said.
             "As you very well know," Robinson continued, "everybody believes
        that Mr. Clifton Webb has bought the Thundermug from Duke Stratford
        for two million dollars.  They are well aware that it was secretly
        shipped to Hollywood East under armed guard and that at this very
        moment the art treasure reposes in a concealed safe in Mr. Webb's
        library."  The inspector pointed to a wall, where the combination dial
        of a safe was thoughtfully set in the navel of a nude by Amedeo
        Modigliani (2381-2431), and highlighted by a concealed pin spot.
             "Vhere is Mr. Vebb now?" Miss Garbo asked.
             "Having turned over his palatial mansion to us at your request,"
        Robinson answered, "he is presently on a pleasure cruise of the
        Carib with his family and servants.  As you very well know, this
        is a closely guarded secret."
             "And the Thundermug?" Horton asked nervously.  "Where is it?"
             "Why, sir, in that safe."
             "You mean--you mean you actually brought it over from Stratford?
        It's here?  Oh, my God! Why Why?"
             "We had to have the art treasure transported, Mr. Horton.  How
        else could we have leaked the closely guarded secret to Associated
        Press, United Television, Reuters News and the Satellite Syndicate,
        thus enabling them to take sneak photographs?"
             "B-but . . . But if it's actually stolen. . . . Oh, my God! This
        is awful."
             "Ladies and gents," Robinson said.  "Me and my associates, the
        best cops on the Hollywood East force, the Honorable Edmund Kean,
        Commissioner, will be here, nominally going through the duties of the
        household staff, actually keeping our eyes peeled, leaving no stone
        unturned, up to every trick and dodge known in the annals of crime.
        If anything's taken, it will not be the Flowered Thundermug; it will
        be the Artsy-Craftsy Kid."
             "The who?" De Sica asked.
             "Your crooked connoisseur, sir.  That's our nickname for him on
        the Bunco Squad.  And now, if you will be good enough to slip out
        under cover of darkness, using a little-known door in the back garden,
        me and my associates will begin our simulated domestic duties.  We
        have a hot tip from the underworld that the Artsy-Craftsy Kid will
        strike--tonight."
             The Little Group of Powerful Art Dealers departed under cover of
        darkness; the Bunco Squad began the evening household routine to
        reassure any suspicious observer that life was proceeding normally in
        the Webb pleasance.  Inspector Robinson was to be seen, gravely pacing
        back and forth before the living room windows, carrying a silver
        salver on which was glued a wineglass, its interior ingeniously
        painted red to simulate claret.
             Sergeants Brophy and Albert, the footmen, alternately opened the
        front door for each other with much elaborate formality as they took
        turns going out to mail letters.  Detective Kennedy painted the
        garage.  Detective Edna May Oliver hung the bedding out over the
        upstairs windows to air.  And at frequent intervals Sergeant Begley
        (chef) chased Sergeant Mayhoff (second chef) through the house with a
        meat cleaver.
             At 2300 hours, Inspector Robinson put the salver down and yawned
        prodigiously.  The cue was picked up by his staff, and the entire
        mansion echoed with yawns.  In the living room, Inspector Robinson
        undressed, put on a nightgown and nightcap, lit a candle and
        extinguished the lights.  He put out the library lights, leaving only
        the pin spot focused on the safe dial.  Then he trudged upstairs.  In
        other parts of the house his staff also changed to nightgowns, and
        then joined him.  The Webb home was dark and silent.
             An hour passed; a clock chimed twenty-four.  A loud clank sounded
        from the direction of Skouras Drive.
             "The front gate," Ed whispered.
             "Someone's coming in," Ed said.
             "It's the Artsy-Craftsy Kid," Ed added.
             "Keep your voices down!"
             "Right, Chief."
             There was a crunch-crunch-crunch of gravel.
             "Coming up the front drive," Ed muttered.
             "Oh, he's a deep one," Ed said.
             The gravel noises changed to mushy sounds.
             "Crossing the flower border," Ed said.
             "You got to hand it to him," Ed said.
             There was a dull thud, a stumble and an imprecation.
             "Stepped into a flowerpot," Ed said.
             There came a series of thuddy noises at irregular intervals.
             "Can't get it off," Ed said.
             A crack and a clatter.
             "Got it off now," Ed said.
             "Oh, he's slick all right," Ed said.
             There came exploratory taps on glass.
             "At the library window," Ed said.
             "Did you unlock it?"
             "I though Ed was going to do that, Chief."
             "Did you, Ed?"
             "No, Chief.  I thought Ed was supposed to."
             "He'll never get in.  Ed, see if you can unlock it without him
        seeing--"
             A crash of glass.
             "Never mind, he's got it open.  You can always trust a pro."
             The window creaked up; there were scrapes and grunts as the
        midnight intruder climbed through.  When he finally stood upright in
        the library, his silhouette against the beam of the pin spot was
        apelike.  He looked around uncertainly for some time, and at last
        began searching aimlessly through drawers and cupboards.
             "He'll never find it," Ed whispered.  "I told you we should of
        put a sign under the dial, Chief."
             "No, trust an old pro.  See?  What'd I tell you?  He's spotted
        it.  All set now?"
             "Don't you want to wait for him to crack it, Chief?"
             "Why?"
             "Catch him red-handed."
             "For God's sake, that safe's burglar proof. Come on now. Ready?
        Go!"
             The library was flooded with light.  The thief started back from
        the concealed safe in consternation, to find himself surrounded by
        seven grim detectives, all leveling guns at his head.  The fact that
        they were wearing nightshirts did not make them look any less
        resolute.  For their part, the detectives saw a broad-shouldered,
        bull-necked burglar with a lantern jaw.  The fact that he had not
        altogether shaken off the contents of the flowerpot, and wore a Parma
        violet (_Viola_pallida_plena_) on his right shoe, did not make him
        look any less vicious.
             "And now, Kid, *if* you please," Inspector Robinson said with the
        exaggerated courtesy that made his admirers call him the Beau Brummel
        of the Bunco Squad.
             They bore the malefactor off to headquarters in triumph.

             Five minutes after the detectives departed with their captive, a
        gentleman in full evening cloak sauntered up to the front door of the
        Webb mansion.  He rang the doorbell.  From within came the music of
        the first eight bars of Ravel's _Bolero_ played on full carillon
        orchestra in waltz tempo.  While the gentleman appeared to wait
        carelessly, his right hand slid through a slit in his cloak and
        rapidly tried a series of keys in the lock.  The gentleman rang the
        bell again.  Midway through the second rendition of the _Bolero_, he
        found a key that fitted.
             He turned the lock, thrust the door open a few inches with a
        twist of his toe, and spoke pleasantly, as to an invisible servant
        inside.
             "Good evening.  I'm afraid I'm rather late.  Is everybody asleep,
        or am I still expected?  Oh, good.  Thank you."  The gentleman entered
        the house, shut the door behind him softly, looked around at the dark,
        empty foyer, and grinned.  "Like taking candy from kids," he murmured.
        "I ought to be ashamed of myself."
             He located the library, entered and turned on all the lights.  He
        removed his cloak, lit a cigarette, noticed the bar and then poured
        himself a drink from one of the more appealing decanters.  He tried it
        and gagged.  "Ack! A new horror, and I thought I knew them all.  What
        the hell is it?"  He dipped his tongue into the glass.  "Scotch, yes;
        but Scotch and what?"  He sampled again.  "My God, it's broccoli
        juice."
             He glanced around, found the safe, crossed to it and inspected
        it.  "Great heavens!" he exclaimed.  "A whole three-number dial--all
        of twenty-seven possible combinations.  Absolutely burglar-proof.  I
        really am impressed."
             He reached for the dial, looked up, met the nude's melting
        glance, and smiled apologetically.  "I beg your pardon," he said, and
        began twisting the dial: 1-1-1, 1-1-2, 1-1-3, 1-2-1, 1-2-2, 1-2-3, and
        so on, each time trying the handle of the safe, which had been
        cleverly disguised as the nude's forefinger.  At 3-2-1, the handle
        came down with a smart click.  The safe door opened, eviscerating,
        at [sic] it were, the lovely belly.  The cracksman reached in and
        brought out the Flowered Thundermug.  He contemplated it for a
        full minute.
             A low voice spoke.  "Remarkable, isn't it?"

Interesting. I was an voracious reader of scifi in the late
1950's and early 1960's, and even *subscribed* to F&SF, so I
have undoubtedly read this author. The passages don't ring a
bell, though. Guess I'll have to ponder for a while and search
the ol' memory vaults.

Doesn't ring a bell with me either.  So I'll make another mostly random guess:
C. M. Kornbluth.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss