The chaplain glanced at the bridge table that served as his desk and saw only the abominable orange-red, pear-shaped, plum tomato he had obtained that same morning from Colonel Cathcart, still lying on its side where he had forgotten it like an indestructible and incarnadine symbol of his own ineptitude.

We got on the wrong side in Afghanistan long ago by supporting the religious extremist mujahedin against a secular government favored by the Soviet Union — all because we had anti-Communism as a mental disease.

In the lounge, Lorenson was at a desk in the corner looking over his notes, and suppressing a smile at this bit of one-up-manship (or even worse, one-up-womanship) over Brewster.

[…]it sall be lesum to quhatsumewir personne apprehendand the said swyne in thair awin skaytht, or thair nichtbouris skaytht, or vpon the commountie of Castelhill, Womanhill, Kirkyard, or Linx vertand the ertht, to distroy the samen[…].