"And as the time passed and the servants came in and stood waiting in the hall, his eyes began to blink anxiously, and he spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way."

I figured that "ducks will have something to eat" post has got you screaming please, please, give me a "Gatsby" sentence. I know many of you don't like or don't get the "Gatsby" project, in which we isolate and munch on a single, possibly turgid, sentence from "The Great Gatsby," more or less every day around here on the Althouse blog. But now, perhaps, you'd love one as an amuse bouche. The moods are orchestrated here on Althouse.

This sentence has us suspended in time. Time passed, servants waited, standing around, and the man is there, being awkward. Blink is a good word in relation to time. It expresses the shortest kind of time, and anxious eye blinking contrasts to the waiting around of the servants. They are patient and he is nervous, and then — cutting through the awkwardness — the man speaks — but his speech piles on more awkwardness, as he talks about the weather — rain — and we need to be told that this isn't relaxing talk-about-the-weather small talk. His weather-talk has a specific, unsettling attitude: He spoke of the rain in a worried, uncertain way.

How is the weather where you are? Is there much rain? Please watch out for the ducks... the hungry, hungry ducks.