The Catbird Seat — Vocabulary
James Thurber
The New Yorker 11/14/1942
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Mrs. Ulgine Barrows stood charged with willful, blatant, and persistent attempts to destroy the efficiency and system of F & S. It was competent, material, and relevant to review her advent and rise to power.†

She was still screaming imprecations at Mr. Martin, tangled and contradictory imprecations.†

This brought you, rather than anyone else, to her mind—but again that is a phenomenon for Dr. Fitch and not for us.†

On it lay a metal paper knife with an ornate handle.†

The aging gentleman had jumped to the conclusion there and then that this was a woman of singular attainments, equipped to bring out the best in him and in the firm.†

Mrs. Ulgine Barrows stood charged with willful, blatant, and persistent attempts to destroy the efficiency and system of F & S. It was competent, material, and relevant to review her advent and rise to power.†

It had not come yet; he had received no blue memo from the enchanted Mr. Fitweiler bearing nonsensical instructions deriving from the obscene woman.†

Mrs. Ulgine Barrows stood charged with willful, blatant, and persistent attempts to destroy the efficiency and system of F & S. It was competent, material, and relevant to review her advent and rise to power.†

And therein lay the cunning of his scheme.†

Mr. Martin allowed less than a second for his bewildered pause.†

The woman had appalled Mr. Martin instantly, but he hadn't shown it.†

He had two glasses of milk after brushing his teeth, and he felt elated.†

"Mrs. Barrows is under the delusion," continued Mr. Fitweiler, "that you visited her last evening and behaved yourself in an—uh—unseemly manner."†

Her pickaxe was on the upswing, poised for the first blow.†

It has taken the form of a persecution complex accompanied by distressing hallucinations.†1 more

Mrs. Ulgine Barrows stood charged with willful, blatant, and persistent attempts to destroy the efficiency and system of F & S. It was competent, material, and relevant to review her advent and rise to power.†

She had begun chipping at the cornices of the firm's edifice and now she was swinging at the foundation stones with a pickaxe.†

It was his idea to puff a few puffs on a Camel (after the rubbing-out), stub it out in the ashtray holding her lipstick-stained Luckies, and thus drag a small red herring across the trail.†

In the halls, in the elevator, even in his own office, into which she romped now and then like a circus horse, she was constantly shouting these silly questions at him.†

For the hundredth time he resented the element of imprecision, the margin of guesswork that entered into the business.†