Ned Merrill: How's the family, Howie?
Howie Hunsacker: My oldest boy just won the American Legion Scholarship Award. Straight A's this year.
Ned Merrill: That's wonderful...
Lillian Hunsacker: [Butting in] Yeah, then we bring our kids up to behave themselves. We don't let *our* kids run around drunk, wrecking cars.
Jack Finney: He kept his daughters' names outta' the paper *that* time.
Sylvia Finney: I'll bet *that* check didn't bounce!
Ned Merrill: [Getting agitated] You leave my daughters out of this!
Sylvia Finney: Well, why didn't you teach 'em some manners?
Lillian Hunsacker: Ah, those girls never paid no attention to him.
Howie Hunsacker: You, shut up...
Lillian Hunsacker: Look, I'm not blaming the girls. It's him. Always chummin' around with the kids, tryin' to be "one of the gang."
Ned Merrill: My daughters worship me. The love me and respect me. Because I'm their father. And they respect me. They respect me!
Lillian Hunsacker: [Sarcastically] Yeah?
Ned Merrill: My girls love me.
Lillian Hunsacker: How many times we heard those girls talkin' in our place. We heard your girls givin' you the raspberry.
Ned Merrill: You're a liar.
Howie Hunsacker: Come on, Mr. Merrill, don't talk to my wife that way.
Ned Merrill: She's a goddamned liar!
Howie Hunsacker: Wanna' know what your girls thought of you, Mr. Merrill? Your girls laughed at you. I heard them. They thought you were a great big joke!
[Ned, disgusted, angrily shoves Howie aside and runs off]


--Bill Fiore (as Howie Hunsacker) in The Swimmer