a leg to stand on站得住腳的理由

Mr. Norton, the first thing that struck me was that suicide angle. Only I dumped it into the wastepaper basket just three seconds later. You know, you ought to take a look at the statistics on suicide sometime. You might learn a little something about the insurance business. Mr. Keyes, I was raised in the insurance business. Yeah, in the front office. Come now, you've never read an actuarial table in your life, have you? Suicide by race, by color, by occupation... by sex, by seasons of the year, by time of day. Suicide, how committed? By poisons, by firearms, by drowning, by leaps. Suicide by poison, subdivided by types of poison... such as corrosive, irritant, systemic, gaseous, narcotic... alkaloid, protein, and so forth. Suicide by leaps, subdivided by leaps from high places... under the wheels of trains, under the wheels of trucks... under the feet of horses, from steamboats. But, Mr. Norton... of all the cases on record there's not one single case of suicide by leap... from the rear end of a moving train. And do you know how fast that train was going... Now how can anybody jump off a slow moving train like that... with any kind of expectation that he would kill himself? No. No soap, Mr. Norton. We're sunk, and we'll have to pay through the nose, and you know it.

諾頓先生，我頭一個想到的就是自殺這個角度。 可三秒鐘後我就把它扔進了廢紙簍。 我說，你哪天真該去翻翻自殺的統計數字。 說不定能對保險這行多懂一點。 基斯先生，我可是在保險行當里長大的。 是啊，在總部的辦公室裡長大的。 得了吧，你這輩子就沒讀過一張精算表，是不是？ 自殺按種族分，按膚色分，按職業分…… 按性別分，按一年四季分，按一天裡的時辰分。 自殺怎麼個死法？服毒、開槍、投水、跳下去。 服毒自殺，再按毒物種類細分…… 比如腐蝕性的、刺激性的、全身性的、氣態的、麻醉性的…… 生物鹼的、蛋白質的，等等。 跳下的自殺，又按從高處跳細分…… 臥火車輪子、臥卡車輪子…… 臥馬蹄底下、從汽船上跳下去。可諾頓先生…… 有記錄的所有案子裡，沒有一例是從…… 從一列開動中的火車尾部跳下去自殺的。 還有，你知道那趟火車開得多快嗎…… 人怎麼可能從那麼慢的一列火車上跳下去…… 還指望自己能摔死？ 不行。沒門兒，諾頓先生。 我們輸定了，只能大出血賠錢，你心裡清楚。