Whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. - O. Henry

I’m the only honest man in the republic. The government knows it; the people know it; the boodlers know it; the foreign investors know it. I make the government keep its faith. If a man is promised a job he gets it. If outside capital buys a concession it gets the goods. I run a monopoly of square dealing here. There’s no competition. If Colonel Diogenes were to flash his lantern in this precinct he’d have my address inside of two minutes. There isn’t big money in it, but it’s a sure thing, and lets a man sleep of nights.

"In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called "places.

She plucked from my lapel the invisible strand of lint (the universal act of woman to proclaim ownership).