“‘How’s the literary grift go?’ I asked.
“He looked at me sharply, demanding: ‘You haven’t been reading me?’
“‘No. Where’d you get that funny idea?’
“‘There was something in your tone, something proprietary, as in the voice of one who has bought an author for a couple of dollars. I haven’t met it often enough to be used to it. Good God! Remember once I offered you a set of my books as a present?’ He had always liked to talk that way.
“‘Yeah. But I never blamed you. You were drunk.'”
Dashiell Hammett, The Dain Curse