‘You may try, and try, and try again, Messrs. Dodson and Fogg,’ said Mr. Pickwick vehemently, ‘but not one farthing of costs or damages do you ever get from me, if I spend the rest of my existence in a debtor’s prison.’
— from The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens

By Mr. Engelbert: Q. You being the chief of detectives, did you send any men out to spot those parties?
— from Report of the Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July, 1877 Read in the Senate and House of Representatives May 23, 1878 by 1877 Pennsylvania. General Assembly. Committee Appointed to Investigate the Railroad Riots in July

"How many copies of Ducange did you place last journey?" asked Porchon of his partner.
— from Lost Illusions by Honoré de Balzac

Ere Julius, with the morning, had him forth To inquest from his dungeon, that quick brain Had ripe and ready, conjured up in thought, For self-defense, with snare involved for Paul, A desperate last compacture of deceit; Desperate, yet deftly woven, and staggering,
— from The Epic of Paul by William Cleaver Wilkinson

Then, after many moons had passed, he said to the chief one day: ‘Do you remember what you once promised me?
— from Blackfeet Tales of Glacier National Park by James Willard Schultz

There is, however, one of your inconsistencies that consoles me a little, which is that though, living, you give one another the character of devils, dead, you are all angels.
— from The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 2, February, 1864 Devoted To Literature And National Policy by Various

In a rough-and-tumble fight I am afraid you would master me easier than you would do in a contest of diplomacy.' 'Do you call it diplomacy?
— from A Woman Intervenes by Robert Barr

"That you continue when you feel certain of death does you honor.
— from Fearful Symmetry: A Terran Empire novel by Ann Wilson

"And where," asked Theresa, with the coarseness of desperation, "did you pick him up?"
— from Yonder by E. H. (Emily Hilda) Young