the last book I ever read (Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon, excerpt eight)

from The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett:

She blushed. She picked up a slice of bread encrusted with grey liverwurst. She put it down on her plate. She wrinkled her white forehead and she said: “It’s a black figure, as you know, smooth and shiny, of a bird, a hawk or falcon, about that high.” She held her hands a foot apart.