Jamison: [reading back the letter] "In care of Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga, and McCormack..."
Spaulding: You've left out a Hungadunga! You've left out the main one, too. Thought you could slip one over on me, didn't you, eh? All right, leave it out and put in a windshield wiper instead. I tell you what you do, Jamison. I tell you what. Make it, uh, make it three windshield wipers and one Hungadunga. They won't all be there when the letter arrives, anyhow.
Jamison: "Hungadunga, Hungadunga, Hungadunga...and McCormack."
Spaulding: "...and McCormack."
Jamison: "Gentlemen, question mark."
Spaulding: "Gentlemen, Question Mark!!" Put it on the penultimate, not on the dipthonic. You want to brush up on your Greek, Jamison. Well, get a Greek and brush up on him!
Jamison: "In re yours of the fifteenth."
Spaulding: I see.
Jamison: Now, uh, you said a lot of things here that I didn't think were important, so I just omitted them.
Mrs. Rittenhouse: Well!... [Spaulding swings at his head and misses] Whoa, Captain! Good gracious! Oh, my!
Spaulding: So...you just omitted them, eh? ...You just omitted the body of the letter, that's all. You've just left out the body of the letter, that's all! Yours not to reason why, Jamison! You've left out the body of the letter!...All right, send it that way and tell them the body'll follow.
Jamison: Do you want the body in brackets?
Spaulding: No, it will never get there in brackets. Put it in a box. Put it in a box and mark it 'fragilly'.
Jamison: Mark it what?
Spaulding: Mark it 'fragilly.' F - R - A - G...Look it up, Jamison. It's in the dictionary. Look under 'fragile'. Look under the table if you don't find it there.
Jamison: "Quotes, unquotes, and quotes."
Spaulding: That's three quotes?
Jamison: Yes, sir.
Spaulding: Add another quote and make it a gallon. How much is it a gallon, Jamison?
Jamison: Regards.
Spaulding: Regards. That's a fine letter, Jamison, that's an epic. That's dandy. Now, I want you to make two carbon copies of that letter and throw the original away. And when you get through with that, throw the carbon copies away. Just send a stamp, airmail, that's all. You may go, Jamison. I may go too.

Chandler: In the last analysis, it is a question of money. The nickel today is not what it used to be ten years ago.
Spaulding: Well, I'll go further than that. I'll get off at the depot. The nickel today is not what it was fifteen years ago. Do you know what this country needs today?...A seven-cent nickel. Yessiree, we've been using the five-cent nickel in this country since 1492. Now that's pretty near a hundred years' daylight saving. Now, why not give the seven-cent nickel a chance? If that works out, next year we could have an eight-cent nickel. Think what that would mean. You could go to a newsstand, buy a three-cent newspaper and get the same nickel back again. One nickel carefully used would last a family a lifetime!
Chandler: Captain Spaulding, I think that is a wonderful idea.
Spaulding: You do, huh?
Chandler: Yes.
Spaulding: Then there can't be much to it. Forget about it.

Chandler: Well, I've always tried to do what I could, especially in the world of art.
Spaulding: Art. Well, I don't know how we drifted around to that, but what is your opinion of art?
Chandler: I am very glad you asked me!
Spaulding: I withdraw the question! This fellow takes things seriously, it isn't safe to ask him a simple question. Tell me, Mr. Chandler, where are you planning on putting your new opera house?
Chandler: Oh, I thought I should like to put it somewhere near Central Park.
Spaulding: I see. Why don't you put it right in Central Park?
Chandler: Could we do that?
Spaulding: Sure, do it at night when no one is looking. Why don't you put it in the reservoir and get the whole thing over with? Of course, that might interfere with the water supply. But after all we must remember that 'art is art.' Still, on the other hand, water is water, isn't it? And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like apple sauce, they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.

Ravelli: I gotta-a an idea how to find-a this painting. In a case like this that is so mysterious, you gotta-a get-a the clues. You gotta-a use-a the Sherlock-a Holmes method...You say to yourself, 'What happened?' And the answer come back...'Something was stolen.' Then, you-a say to yourself, 'What was stolen?' And the answer come back: 'A painting.'
Spaulding: What are you, a ventriloquist?
Ravelli: Now you say to yourself, 'Where was this painting stolen?' And the answer come back: 'In this house.' Now so far, I'm-a right, eh?
Spaulding: Well, it's pretty hard to be wrong if you keep answering yourself all the time.
Ravelli: Now you go a little further and you say to yourself, 'Who stole the painting?' This is a very, very important question. Captain, if you got-a the answer, you got-a the solution to the whole thing.
Spaulding: Especially if you find the picture.
Ravelli: Now you take all-a the clues. You put 'em together. What do ya got, eh?
Spaulding: Bread pudding?

Mrs. Rittenhouse: Captain, this leaves me speechless.
Spaulding: Well, see that you remain that way.

Ravelli: How did you get to be Roscoe W. Chandler?
Chandler: Say, how did you get to be an Italian?
Ravelli: Never mind that, whose confession is this?

Ravelli: Hey, Captain. It come to me like a flash! This painting wasn't stolen. Ha! You know what happened? This painting, Captain, disappeared, and yes, it disappeared. And you know what make it disappear? You'll never guess, Captain. What do you think-a make-a this painting disappear, huh? Moths! Moths eat it...Left-handed moths.
Spaulding: Go away. Go away. I'll be all right in a minute. Left-handed moths ate the painting, eh?
Ravelli: Yeah, it's a-my own solution.
Spaulding: I wish you were in it. Left-handed moths ate the painting. You know, I'd buy you a parachute if I thought it wouldn't open.
Ravelli: Hey, I got pair-a shoes.
Spaulding: Come on, let's go down and get the reward. We solved it, you solved it. The credit is all yours. The painting was eaten by a left-handed moth.
Ravelli: Hey, you know, we did a good day's work.
Spaulding: How do you feel - tired? Maybe you ought to lie down for a couple of years, eh? Why don't you just lie down so rigor mortis sets in. Look, Ravelli, I'll show ya how to get the painting. We'll go to court, and we'll get out a writ of habeas corpus.
Ravelli: You're gonna get rid-a what?
Spaulding: Oh, I should never have started that way, I can see that.

Well, what do I owe ya?...What? From Africa to here, a dollar eighty-five? That's an outrage. I told you not to take me through Australia. You know it's all ripped up. You should have come right up the Lincoln Boulevard.

[singing] Hello, I must be going
I cannot stay
I came to say
I must be going...

[to Mrs. Rittenhouse and Mrs. Whitehead] Yes, I don't think I've ever seen four more beautiful eyes in my life. Well, three anyway. You know, you two girls have everything. You're tall and short and slim and stout and blonde and brunette, and that's just the kind of a girl I crave. We three would make an ideal couple. Why, you've got beauty, charm, money. You have got money, haven't you? 'Cause if you haven't, we can quit right now.

Ravelli: Now, what do you say, uh, what do you say, Captain, we build right about here.
Spaulding: Here?
Ravelli: Here, right about here. [pointing to a spot on the table]
Spaulding: Oh, I'd like something over here if I could get it. I don't like Junior crossing the tracks on his way to the reform school. I don't like Junior at all, as a matter of fact.
Ravelli: All right, all right. We got something over there. And believe me, that's a-convenient. Oh, that's a-very convenient. Well look, all you gotta do is open the door, step outside, and there you are.
Spaulding: There you are?
Ravelli: Yeah.
Spaulding: There you are where?
Ravelli: Outside.
Spaulding: But suppose you want to get back in again?
Ravelli: You had no right to go out.
Spaulding: Well, don't do anything until I hear from you, will ya? Say, maybe that's the painting down in the cellar.
Ravelli: That's a-no cellar. That's the roof!
Spaulding: That's the roof down there?
Ravelli: Yeah, you see, we keep-a the roof in the basement, so when the rain come, the chimney don't get wet.

Guests: Hooray for Captain Spaulding, the African explorer!
Spaulding: Did someone call me schnorrer?
Guests: Hooray, hooray, hooray!
Jamison: He went into the jungle where all the monkeys throw nuts.
Spaulding: If I stay here, I'll go nuts.
Guests: Hooray, hooray, hooray! He put all his reliance / In courage and defiance / And risked his life for science.
Spaulding: Hey, hey!
Mrs. Rittenhouse: He is the only white man who covered every acre...
Spaulding: I think I'll try and make her...
Guests: Hooray, hooray, hooray!

Spaulding: [inspecting the canvas] Say, this is signed Beaugard. There's the criminal, Beaugard.
Arabella: No, Beaugard is dead.
Spaulding: Beaugard is dead! Then it's MURDER! Now we've got something.

Ravelli: Here's what-a we got. Something was stolen. Stolen where? In-a this house. Stolen by who? 'Somebody in the house.' Now to find the painting, all you got to do is go to everybody in the house and ask 'em if they took it.
Spaulding: You know, I could rent you out as a decoy for duck hunters. You say you're gonna go to everybody in the house and ask them if they took the painting. Suppose nobody in the house took the painting?
Ravelli: Go to the house next door.
Spaulding: That's great. Suppose there isn't any house next door?
Ravelli: Well, then of course, we gotta build one.
Spaulding: Well now you're talkin'. What kind of a house do you think we ought to put up?
Ravelli: Well, I tell ya. Captain. You see, my idea of a house is something nice, and a-small, and comfortable.
Spaulding: That's the way I feel about it. I don't want anything elaborate. Just a little place that I can call home and tell the wife I won't be there for dinner.
Ravelli: I see, you just want a telephone booth.

Spaulding: I say, take a letter to my lawyers!
Jamison: Well I am taking it!
[long pause, as nothing has yet been written]
Spaulding: Honorable Charles H., uh, Hungerdunger, care of Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, and McCormick... semicolon.
Jamison: How do you spell semicolon?
Spaulding: All right, make it a comma. [pause] Honorable Charles. H. Hungerdunger, care of Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, Hungerdunger, and McCormick. [pause] Gentlemen, question mark? [grunts]
Jamison: Do you want that, uh, [grunt] in the letter?
Spaulding: No, put that in an envelope. [pause] Now then. In re yours of the fifth inst., yours to hand and beg to rep... brackets...[pause] ... We have gone over the ground carefully, and we seem to believe, i.e., to wit, e.g., in lieu, that, uh, despite all our... precautionary measures which have been involved... [pause] ...uh, we seem to believe that it is hardly necessary for us to proceed unless we, uh, receive an ipso facto that is not negligible at this moment, quotes, unquotes, and quotes... [pause] ...uh, hoping this finds you, I beg to remain...
Jamison: [interrupting] Hoping this finds him where?
Spaulding: Well, let him worry about that. Don't be so inquisitive, Jamison. Sneak. [pause] I say, hoping this finds you, I beg to remain, as of June 9th, cordially yours, regards. That's all, Jamison.