I'm just tellin' you you ain't ben in an hour.

I heard 'm lacin' you." The thing was incredible.

Already, in less than an hour, I had died a thousand deaths.

And yet this neighbour, balanced and equable, calm-voiced and almost beneficent despite the harshness of his first remarks, had been in the jacket fifty hours! "How much longer are they going to keep you in ?" I asked.
"The Lord only knows.

Captain Jamie is real peeved with me, an' he won't let me out until I'm about croakin'.