“Sir Percy Blakeney, as the chronicles of the time inform us, was, in this year of grace 1792, still a year or two on the right side of thirty. Tall, above the average, even for an Englishman, broad-shouldered and massively built, he would have been called unusually good-looking, but for a certain lazy expression in his deep-set blue eyes, and that perpetual inane laugh which seemed to disfigure his strong, clearly cut mouth.
chapter VI, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy, 1905
“Zounds, my dear fellow did you ever see such a beastly day?”
“La!”
“Odd’s fish!”
“Demmed uncomfortable things, duels, ain’t they, Tony?”
“Odd’s life, m’dear!”
“Begad!”
“Lud!”
“Beastly uncomfortable place Paris, just now.”
“La! m’dear.”
“Zooks!”
“Suddenly… a sound… the strangest, undoubtedly, that these lonely cliffs of France had ever heard, broke the silent solemnity of the shore.
chapter xxxi, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy, 1905
So strange a sound was it, that the gentle breeze ceased to murmur, the tiny pebbles to roll down the steep incline!
It was the sound of a good, solid, absolutely British ‘D***!'”
(I don’t make it a point to share curse words often, however, the above quote is at one of the greatest turning points in the story. It makes me laugh every time. All I can say is you’ve got to read the book.)