学点表达：

1. go halves with sb. 两人AA，平摊

2. The conversation drifted away into other channels. 漫无目的的瞎聊

3. You seem to be a walking calendar of crime. 可用来称赞某人是行走的百科全书等

4. while away the time  v.消磨打发（时间）

    while away the hours/evening/days etc： to spend time in a pleasant and lazy way

    e.g. The evenings were whiled away in endless games of cards.

5. it sharpens the faculties of observation

6. hail/get/call/catch a cab

7. -ish: yellowish/brutish/sickish

8. wear the same far-away expression/leave the two rivals open mouthed behind him/put the police upon a wrong track/afford him considerable amusement

9. a shade of anxiety seemd to me to cross my companion's expressive face.

10. three steps at a time, and burst into our sitting room/force his way into the room

11. slack season 不景气

12. before my very face 当着本尊的面

13. The plot thickens.

14. There was eighty-odd pounds in it. 

可能用到的句子：

1. There is nothing new under the sun. It has all been done before.

太阳底下无新鲜事。

2. It's just as well for two fellows to know the worst of one another before they begin to live together.

说得真对，形式上还压尾韵。

3.  Half confidences are worse than none.

好的比喻：

1. as free as air/as clear as day/as busy as bees

2. a load seemed to be lifted from my mind

漂亮的描写：

In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert, which for many a long year served as a barrier against the advance of civilization.

发现作者超喜欢用there+vi.的倒装句

There was not a soul to be seen, nor a sound to be heard, except the dripping of the rain.

寂静得可怕。

外文引用：
Quotation 1:

“Un sot trouve toujours un plus sot qui l’admire,”

“A fool always finds a greater fool to admire him.”

Quotation 2: Latin phrase from Horace (Book 1, Satire 1):

“Populus me sibilat, at mihi plaudo; Ipse domi simul ac nummos contemplar in arca.”

“The public hisses at me, but I applaud myself in my own house, and simultaneously contemplate the money in my chest.”