Let's think of an epigram,' and he scratched his head and slapped his thigh.

It was the Captain's way of thinking.

The satisfactory epigram would not emerge.

He could fashion nothing better as a description of Cranston than, 'A refreshment-room sandwich; two great chunks of sin and a little slice of repentance between.' Mr.Burl condemned it as crude, and for the moment the epigram was dropped.
The Mallinsons arrived a week after the contest had begun.

Captain Le Mesurier welcomed Clarice with boisterous effusion, and her husband with quarter-deck dignity.