Left by themselves, the visitors began to speak jestingly of the strange situation in which they were placed. The original holder of Number Fourteen described his experience of the Doctor in his own pithy way. "I applied to the fellow to tell my fortune. He first went to sleep over it, and then he said he could tell me nothing. I asked why. 'I don't know,' says he. '_ I_ do,' says I--'humbug!' I'll bet you the long odds, gentlemen, that _you_ find it humbug, too."英文原著 · 《LITTLE NOVELS》
I particularly enjoyed the pithy judgment in about five words on Comte. (292/2. Possibly the passage referred to is on page 52.) Notwithstanding the clearness of every sentence, the subjects are in part so difficult that I found them stiff reading. I fear, therefore, that it will be too stiff for the general public; but I heartily hope that this will prove to be a mistake, and in this case the intelligence of the public will be greatly exalted in my eyes. The writing of this book must have been awfully hard work, I should think.英文原著 · 《More Letters of Charles Darwin Volume I》
Immense was the applause that followed the short, pithy speech of the Bourgeois. The ladies blushed and praised, the gentlemen cheered and enjoyed in anticipation the renewal of the old hospitalities of Belmont.英文原著 · 《The Golden Dog》