" Did I say that?” he asked, and then added in so low a voice that Alice could not hear what he was saying, “If I said that then I am a very great fool indeed. "

― M.C. Beaton , Introducing Hamish Macbeth: Mysteries #1-3: Death of a Gossip, Death of a Cad, and Death of an Outsider Omnibus (A Hamish Macbeth Mystery)