Ham Porter Quotes

I'll stay if you'll tell me about the time you broke your nose.” Bronson's smile lingered as he touched the angled bridge of his nose reflectively. “I got this while sparring with Tom Crib, the former coal porter they called the ‘Black Diamond.’ He had fists as big as hams and a left hook that made you see stars.” “Who won?” Holly asked, unable to resist. “I outlasted Crib after twenty rounds and finally knocked him down. It was after that fight that I got my name—‘ Bronson the Butcher.’” The obvious masculine pride he took in the name made Holly feel slightly queasy. “How charming,” she murmured in a dry tone that made him laugh. “It didn't improve my looks much, having Crib smash my beak,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. “I wasn't a pretty sort to begin with. Now I'll definitely never be mistaken for an aristocrat.” “You wouldn't have anyway.” Bronson pretended to wince. “That's as painful a jab as any I received in the rope ring, my lady. So you don't exactly fancy my beat-up mug, is that what you're saying?” “You know very well that you're an attractive man, Mr. Bronson. Just not in an aristocratic way. For one thing, you have too many… that is, you're too… muscular.” She gestured to his bulging coat sleeves and shoulders. “Pampered noblemen don't have arms like that.” “So my tailor tells me.” “Isn't there any way to make them, well… smaller?” “Not that I'm aware of. But just to satisfy my curiosity, how much would I have to shrivel to pass for a gentleman?” Holly laughed and shook her head. “Physical appearance is the least of your worries, sir. You need to acquire a proper air of dignity. You're far too irreverent.” “But attractive,” he countered. “You did say I was attractive.” “Did I? I'm certain I meant to use the word ‘incorrigible.

Theme It's a sunny weekday in early May and after a ham sandwich and a cold bottle of beer on the brick terrace, I am consumed by the wish to add something to one of the ancient themes– youth dancing with his eyes closed, for example, in the shadows of corruption and death, or the rise and fall of illustrious men strapped to the turning wheel of mischance and disaster. There is a slight breeze, just enough to bend the yellow tulips on their stems, but that hardly helps me echo the longing for immortality despite the roaring juggernaut of time, or the painful motif of Nature's cyclial return versus man's blind rush to the grave. I could loosen my shirt and lie down in the soft grass, sweet now after its first cutting, but that would not produce a record of the pursuit of the moth of eternal beauty or the despondency that attends the eventual dribble of the once gurgling fountain of creativity. So, as far as great topics go, that seems to leave only the fall from exuberant maturity into sudden, headlong decline– a subject that fills me with silence and leaves me with no choice but to spend the rest of the day sniffing the jasmine vine and surrendering to the ivory goverance of the piano by picking out with my index finger the melody notes of "Easy to Love," a song in which Cole Porter expresses, with put-on nonchalance, the hopelessness of a love brimming with desire and a hunger for affection, but met only and always with frosty disregard.