a leg to stand on站得住脚的理由

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.

诺顿先生，我头一个想到的就是自杀这个角度。 可三秒钟后我就把它扔进了废纸篓。 我说，你哪天真该去翻翻自杀的统计数字。 说不定能对保险这行多懂一点。 基斯先生，我可是在保险行当里长大的。 是啊，在总部的办公室里长大的。 得了吧，你这辈子就没读过一张精算表，是不是？ 自杀按种族分，按肤色分，按职业分…… 按性别分，按一年四季分，按一天里的时辰分。 自杀怎么个死法？服毒、开枪、投水、跳下去。 服毒自杀，再按毒物种类细分…… 比如腐蚀性的、刺激性的、全身性的、气态的、麻醉性的…… 生物碱的、蛋白质的，等等。 跳下的自杀，又按从高处跳细分…… 卧火车轮子、卧卡车轮子…… 卧马蹄底下、从汽船上跳下去。可诺顿先生…… 有记录的所有案子里，没有一例是从…… 从一列开动中的火车尾部跳下去自杀的。 还有，你知道那趟火车开得多快吗…… 人怎么可能从那么慢的一列火车上跳下去…… 还指望自己能摔死？ 不行。没门儿，诺顿先生。 我们输定了，只能大出血赔钱，你心里清楚。