In The Mansion, as part of his cover story about spending a year in the "Govment Vetruns Hospital" in Memphis, Mink claims that a doctor there told him walking was good for him, and that's why he is "on the road instead of the train" (439).
According to Gavin's musings in The Mansion, Jason's behavior might make one "almost believe" that he had spies in both "the Japanese Diet" and "the U.S. Cabinet too," as he seems to have advance knowledge of the coming war and the air training field that would be built in Jefferson (356). ("Diet" in this context is the name of the legislative branch of the Japanese government.)
In The Mansion Ratliff speculates that Flem has "spies" that watch Montgomery Ward's business. He imagines them as children, moreover, "since any little child hired with a ice cream cone" would suit Flem's needs (62).
After his experience with crime and punishment, the first time Mink buys a "soft drink" in The Mansion he imagines a sheriff will "come for him" if he takes the change from his purchase (287).
In The Mansion The question of Linda Snopes' romantic future is answered several times, at least hypothetically, by the 'husbands' that Ratliff and Gavin imagine she'll marry some day. In the first such musing, Ratliff describes how Stevens imagines that Linda will leave Jefferson and marry "the first strange young man that happens by" (153). On another occasion, Ratliff and Stevens together speculate about whether Linda has already met her future husband during her first two or three days in the "Grinnich Village" (169).
Mink has two actual daughters; this "daughter" who lives in "the Delta" is one he invents in The Mansion to keep the Negro cotton farmer from identifying him (439).
In The Mansion Ratliff wonders, facetiously, whether Linda has a daughter "stashed out somewhere" - because he knows that given Gavin's obsession with Eula Varner Snopes and her daughter Linda, another female Snopes would be too much for him to deal with (476).
