Mr. Harry Witzel Quotes in White Cargo (1942)

Wilbur Ashley: The natives have been looking at me lately, in a queer sort of way.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Maybe they're wondering how you can walk without a spine.

Mr. Harry Witzel: I'm moving out of here, Langford. Too hard on the nerves for both of us under the same roof. You keep out of my way, and I'll keep out of yours. Do your work, and don't get involved with the natives.

Mr. Langford: "Involved"?

Mr. Harry Witzel: Never let the men see that you're afraid of them. And don't mammy-palaver.

Mr. Langford: "Mammy-palaver"?

Mr. Harry Witzel: Talk to their women. Give them trinkets

Mr. Langford: Women? Why, that's ridiculous! As if I'd be interested. You're not suggesting that I might...

Mr. Harry Witzel: I'm not suggesting that you "might," I'm prophesying that you *will*.

Mr. Harry Witzel: [Noticing the Doctor crapped out in a chair, handkerchief covering his head, snoring] That's the first intelligent sound he's made all day.

The Doctor: I've been with you for nearly three years. I think I'm just beginning to know you.

Mr. Harry Witzel: We're getting quite sentimental, aren't we?

The Doctor: No, we're getting quite human.

The Doctor: Another touch of fever?

Mr. Harry Witzel: With the white man, it's always fever. With the natives, its always belly sickness.

The Doctor: I've told you, Witzel, a few months in a temperate climate...

Mr. Harry Witzel: Oh, drop that bedside manner. You aren't talking to Ashley, you're talking to me.

The Doctor: Well, at least I'm glad he's going home.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Yeah, of course, you're glad. It doesn't mean a blasted thing to you that I've got to break in a new jellyfish that they're sending out from the home office. And I know just the type he'll be. Come out here with a whole supply of stiff linen collars and ask me a million asinine questions an hour. "I say, how's the hunting?" "Are the natives friendly?" Then he'll get homesick and go back home and write a book about when you're driving in your motor do you ever stop to ponder where we get the rubber for your tires. I can't stomach any more of them.

Mr. Harry Witzel: I tell you, I cannot go on, living month-after-month, year-after-year, within the same four walls, with the same man, any longer. I'd find myself waiting for him to phrase a certain sentence in a certain way. If he did, it would drive me mad.

The Doctor: If were a younger man, Witzel, I would resent your innuendos.

Mr. Harry Witzel: You wouldn't resent anything with a drink hanging on the end of it.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Damp rot. Very damp with him. Its got me and another foreman and it will get you just as sure as you're sure it won't.

Mr. Langford: That's very interesting.

Mr. Harry Witzel: And I'll tell you how it will start. You'll stop shaving, regularly.

Mr. Langford: I doubt it.

Mr. Harry Witzel: I know it. And then you'll stagnate and deteriorate and, in the end, well, just remember what I told you about trinkets.

Mr. Langford: Poor devil, looks scared to death. What's he saying?

The Reverend Dr. Roberts: Apparently, he's stolen something. A rifle. My rifle!

Mr. Harry Witzel: Recognize him? One of your converts, isn't he?

The Reverend Dr. Roberts: Yes.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Yeah, well I never knew it to fail! That's what you get for pampering him. Giving him fair wages, instead of the whip. Stamping out famine and leprosy, swapping medical centers for witch doctors, bibles for voodoos. Well, maybe a dose of my medicine will be more effective than yours. Send him back to Sierra Leone, one year. Court's adjourned.

Skipper of the Congo Queen: Who do you think we see last trip back in Sierra Leone?

Ted - First Mate of the Congo Queen: You know, that short, little Cleopatra.

Wilbur Ashley: Tondelayo.

The Doctor: Tondelayo.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Tondelayo.

Mr. Langford: Well, ha-ha-ha, who is this Tondelayo?

Ted - First Mate of the Congo Queen: Oh, quite an eyeful if you should ask me.

Skipper of the Congo Queen: Up to her tricks again at the convent. You should see the traders, what got religion just to get around there to take a squint at that half-bred.

The Reverend Dr. Roberts: Its the hardest fight we have. As soon as we teach a few women to cook and sew and speak a few dozen words of our language, some white tries to turn her into his own advantage.

Skipper of the Congo Queen: Why shouldn't he?

The Reverend Dr. Roberts: Because the end is always in the beginning. Its always the whites that become the more degraded.

Mr. Harry Witzel: She shows her nose around here, she'll get a whip across her back.

Mr. Harry Witzel: [Referring to Rev. Dr. Roberts] Tondelayo played you for a sap. Translated your good words into bush dialect that all might hear. And then, behind your back, taught your converts to lie and cheat and steal. She's too high and mighty for the natives and too smart for the white man.

Mr. Langford: And fond of trinkets. Thanks, Witzel. Thanks for the tip.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Don't mention it.

Mr. Langford: What's the matter? What's wrong? You sent for me.

Mr. Harry Witzel: It wasn't the heat that drove Ashley crazy, it was Tondaleyo.

Mr. Langford: Well, that's interesting.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Too interesting. You're out here to work. She was picked up leaving your bungalow. What was she doing there?

Mr. Langford: Curiosity, I guess.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Yours or hers?

Mr. Langford: I don't know what this is about, but, don't be scared.

Tondelayo: Witzel, no beat Tondelayo, eh?

Mr. Langford: Of course he won't.

Mr. Harry Witzel: Keep out of this, will you. This young fool isn't under your tricks. You'll get no silks and bangles from him because they're going to throw you out of this district, right now. And if you show your nose in here again, I'll cut my initials across your back.

Mr. Langford: Why does it annoy you that I don't live like a pig?

Mr. Harry Witzel: You didn't come out here to open a cheese shop! You haven't got what it takes. Go on back home.

Mr. Langford: Hear you say, I told you, you'd quite. I hear you say it everyday and with the same intonation. Its getting on my nerves. I'm fed up with your blasted prophecies. "You'll go native." "You'll go home."

Mr. Harry Witzel: That's where you should go, home. Every native here laughs at you behind your back.

Mr. Langford: A lot of help you've given me!

Mr. Harry Witzel: What do you think I am, a wet nurse!

Mr. Langford: I think you're a swine.

Mr. Langford: Another of your prophecies gone up in smoke, Witzel. Get that, I'm marrying one of us!

Mr. Harry Witzel: What difference does that make! I'm not arguing about geography, its what she is that counts.

Tondelayo: Why you no ever come see me?

Mr. Harry Witzel: For the same reason I don't tread on snakes.

Tondelayo: Tondelayo no native. Tondelayo Mrs. Langford! Tondelayo wish plenty much she wasn't.

Mr. Harry Witzel: You're stuck with that poor sap and you can't wiggle out of it. Poetic justice.

Tondelayo: Tondelayo must always stay? No matter what she wants?

Mr. Harry Witzel: No matter wants she wants! It isn't a matter of silks and bangles anymore now. You're married and there isn't a man anywhere along this coast who will ever give you a tumble. Remember what the Padre said at the ceremony?

Tondelayo: Him talk all the time.

Mr. Harry Witzel: I join you two in holy matrimony, 'till death do you part. That means that you're his property for as long as he lives.