Previously in this series: How to tell if you’re in a Hemingway novel.

There’s a woman in the room that you trust about as far as you’d trust a snake. But like all snakes, she can be charmed.

Someone’s been shot with a gun. You’re not sure who did it, but you’re pretty sure that whoever it was had a gun with them.

You’re just drunk enough to tell the truth, and she’s just drunk enough to like it.

You don’t like what you see. But you’re going to look as far as you can; that’s why men have eyes instead of antennae.

Say, wait a minute, you.

You’re loudly criticizing a dangerous man, and he respects you for it.

You don’t believe her story or her money, but you believe those legs. All both of them, top to bottom, and any other direction they care to go in, too.

You’ve just been hit in the face. You wake up alone, in the dark. It was a lousy party anyhow; you were ready to leave. He just did you the favor of putting you to bed on the floor, fully dressed, in a stranger’s house.

You’re part of the darkness now, and the darkness is a part of you. Sunshine and a fresh shave can’t clean it off, and you know it. Razors are for other men’s throats, not for yours.

You were willing to love her, but she wanted you to love her more than you loved that first drink in the morning, and so she had to go.

Nobody’s going to knock you over, see? If someone’s getting knocked over, it sure as murder isn’t going to be you.

You live on the same street as Violence, just around the corner from Taking It Like A Man, and you’re not afraid to walk home alone.

You never kiss the women you trust, and vice versa.

Somewhere, a sap is playing the piano.

You wake up in Singapore. There’s a man in the bed next to you, but at least he’s dead, so you don’t have to worry about making small talk.