"Now, now, there's no need to beat around the bush. Just get on with it and spill the beans. You've been caught red-handed, and — pardon my French — I've got to steal your thunder, by Jove! A little bird told me what happened, and now that it's been dragged into the limelight, you're in a pickle, alright. So fess up and get on with it, or you'll never paint the town red again!"

Though that dialogue is low on specifics, no doubt you understand the general scenario: Someone did something bad and got called out on it. It sounds old-timey, sure, maybe like a 1940s radio broadcast delivered in a Transatlantic accent that evolved from American theater in the early 1900s . And indeed, all the idiomatic phrases in that dialogue — "beat around the bush," "spill the beans," "caught red-handed," "

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