'I must have been insane. About the lion's head for the centurion'sbreastplate; there's a beautiful one over the gate of a house nearSalisbury, called Twisbury Manor; copy that as near as you can; ring upCountry Life and ask for "back numbers", there was a photograph of itabout two years ago. You're putting too much ivy on the turret, Arthur;the owl won't show up unless you have him on the bare stone and I'mparticularly attached to the owl. Munera, darling, like tumtiddy;always a short a in neuter plurals. It sounds like an anagram; see if"Terracotta" fits. I'm delighted to see you, John. Where have youbeen? You can come and buy carpets with me; I've found a new shop inBethnal Green, kept by a very interesting Jew who speaks no English; themost extraordinary things keep happening to his sister. Why should I goto Viola Chasm's Distressed Area; did she come to my Model Madhouse?'
All the Boots, in one way or another, had about a hundred a year each aspocket money. It was therefore convenient for them to live together atBoot Magna, where wages and household expenses were counted in withUncle Roderick's annual deficit. The richest member of the household, inready cash, was Nannie Bloggs, who had been bed-ridden for the lastthirty years; she kept her savings in a red flannel bag under thebolster. Uncle Theodore made attempts on them from time to time, but shewas a sharp old girl and, since she combined a long standing aversion toUncle Theodore with a preternatural aptitude for bringing off showydoubles during the flat racing season, her hoard continued to grow. TheBible and the Turf Guide were her only reading. She got great delightfrom telling each member of the family, severally and secretly, that heor she was her heir.
james salter light years epub download
It was a familiar cry; during his fifteen years of service with theMegalopolitan Company Mr Salter had heard it upon the lips of countlessdistressed colleagues; upon his own. In a moment of compassion heremembered the morning when he had been called from his desk in CleanFun, never to return to it. The post had been his delight and pride;one for which he believed he had a particular aptitude.... First hewould open the morning mail and sort the jokes sent him by the privatecontributors (one man sent him thirty or forty a week) into those thatwere familiar, those that were indecent, and those that deserved thehalf-crown postal order payable upon publication. Then he would spend anhour or two with the bound Punches noting whatever seemed topical.Then the ingenious game began of fitting these legends to the funnyillustrations previously chosen for him by the Art Editor. Serene anddelicate sunrise on a day of tempest! From this task of ordereddiscrimination he had been thrown into the ruthless, cut-throat, roughand tumble of the Beast Woman's Page. From there, crushed andbedraggled, he had been tossed into the editorial chair of the Imperialand Foreign News.... His heart bled for William but he was true tothe austere traditions of his service. He made the reply that hadsilenced so many resentful novices in the past.
Various courageous Europeans in the seventies of the last century cameto Ishmaelia, or near it, furnished with suitable equipment of cuckooclocks, phonographs, opera hats, draft-treaties and flags of the nationswhich they had been obliged to leave. They came as missionaries,ambassadors, tradesmen, prospectors, natural scientists. None returned.They were eaten, every one of them; some raw, others stewed andseasoned--according to local usage and the calendar (for the better sortof Ishmaelites have been Christian for many centuries and will notpublicly eat human flesh, uncooked, in Lent, without special and costlydispensation from their bishop). Punitive expeditions suffered more harmthan they inflicted and in the nineties humane counsels prevailed. TheEuropean powers independently decided that they did not want thatprofitless piece of territory; that the one thing less desirable thanseeing a neighbour established there, was the trouble of taking itthemselves. Accordingly, by general consent, it was ruled off the mapsand its immunity guaranteed. As there was no form of government commonto the peoples thus segregated, nor tie of language, history, habit orbelief, they were called a Republic. A committee of jurists, drawn fromthe Universities, composed a constitution, providing a bicamerallegislature, proportional representation by means of the singletransferable vote, an executive removable by the President on therecommendation of both houses, an independent judicature, religiousliberty, secular education, habeas corpus, free trade, joint stockbanking, chartered corporations, and numerous other agreeable features.A pious old darky named Mr Samuel Smiles Jackson from Alabama was put inas the first President; a choice whose wisdom seemed to be confirmed byhistory for, forty years later, a Mr Rathbone Jackson held hisgrandfather's office in succession to his father Pankhurst, while thechief posts of the state were held by Messrs Garnett Jackson, ManderJackson, Huxley Jackson, his uncle and brothers, and by Mrs Athol (neeJackson) his aunt. So strong was the love which the Republic bore thefamily that General Elections were known as 'Jackson Ngomas' whereverand whenever they were held. These, by the constitution, should havebeen quinquennial, but since it was found in practice that difficulty ofcommunication rendered it impossible for the constituencies to votesimultaneously, the custom had grown up for the receiving officer andthe Jackson candidate to visit in turn such parts of the Republic aswere open to travel, and entertain the neighbouring chiefs to a six daysbanquet at their camp, after which the stupefied aborigines recordedtheir votes in the secret and solemn manner prescribed by theconstitution.
He meant it. He was in love. It was the first time in twenty-threeyears; he was suffused and inflated and tipsy with love. It was believedat Boot Magna, and jocularly commented upon from time to time, that anattachment existed between him and a neighbouring Miss Caldicote; it wasnot so. He was a stranger alike to the bucolic jaunts of the hay fieldand the dark and costly expeditions of his Uncle Theodore. Fortwenty-three years he had remained celibate and heart-whole; landbound.Now for the first time he was far from shore, submerged among deepwaters, below wind and tide, where huge trees raised their spongyflowers and monstrous things without fur or feather, wing or foot,passed silently, in submarine twilight. A lush place. 2ff7e9595c
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