Anyone who has ever spent more than a week on a social media site (which used to mean one of several places, but now pretty much means Facebook) has encountered the Page-56-Line-5 Game.

The game goes like this:

Open the book closest to you (not your favorite!) to page 56.  Copy line 5 from that page as your status, and explain the rules in a comment.  No cheating!

Typically this results in a forgettable, unidentifiable line even in the most well-written and easily recognizable work.  But, the other day luck was with me when the 56-5 Game reared its hackneyed head.

There happened to be two books on the table where I was sitting when I read that in a friend’s status update: Johnson’s Dictionary: A Modern Selection and True Grit by Charles Portis, still there from the review I wrote couple of weeks ago.

Yes, I need to learn to put my books away.

By a corner, Portis beat out Johnson so I cracked open the book and found the prescribed page and line.  What I read there was perhaps the most memorable line from the book, and I knew I would have to take a photo for it to be believed.  So I did: