scapegrace

“Not a bit, and you never will. You’ve grown bigger and bonnier, but you are the same scapegrace as ever.”

Her affect evokes old-timey words — scamp, scapegrace, minx.

However, the various people suspected of Ackroyd’s murder — the enigmatic butler, the pretty parlor maid, the blunt Major Blunt, the fair-haired ingénue, the scapegrace heir — are such genre stereotypes that I grew convinced that Christie employed them, here and throughout her work, in a spirit of ironic affection.

On his last page, his two scapegrace heroes duly toast each other and “a creed even merrier than Socialism, more convivial than Total Abstinence, and more perfectly designed for human needs than Esperanto — the gospel of ‘Cheer up.’

Let her know that she has committed a crime that can land a person behind bars; but remember, too, that this scapegrace is a teenager for now, and your daughter for always.