Poor Larkins had no one to make epigrams in her behoof; her mother was at home tending the younger ones, her father abroad following the studies of his profession, she had but one protector, as she thought, and that one was Baroski.

Jeff was bent low over the backboard, working with the knife, a steady sawing motion, his shirt soaked through with sweat.

The patient said she had been cutting since the age of thirteen.

He was the cruellest, wickedest, out-and-outerest old flint that ever drawed breath.'