The Old Curiosity Club discussion
Nicholas Nickleby
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Tristram wrote: "My wife once noticed that several drawers in our deep-freeze were occupied by books, and she told me that it was high time I started reading some fresh literature."*ba-dum-tshh!*
Good one. :)
Well, this has been an enlightening and disgusting conversation :-) I had never given this a first thought until a few week ago when I received a book from the library that I had placed on hold, and it looked like it had been spit on, eaten over, and buried in the back yard by the dog. I read it wearing medical gloves. And it turns out the story wasn't good, a double whammy.
Does it help to know there are 50,000 species of lice?
I always had you pegged as the swashbuckling type, Tristram.
Xan Shadowflutter wrote: "Does it help to know there are 50,000 species of lice?"Um....no. Definitely not.
Last weekend I overheard my daughter telling her friend that it was not a good idea for her to share her hairbrush because that's how you get lice. She then proceeded to tell her exactly what lice were. I'd say we've gotten our fair share of notices come home from daycare, school, and summer camp informing us of some kid or another having lice and to do a check of our own children. Luckily we've not found anything, but it has apparently made an impression on my daughter.
Oh no...I get library books and used books all the time. So far, nothing has happened, but now I'm tempted to try that freezer trick.
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I never do a lot of swashbuckling when my wife is around, though. And if, I do it on tiptoes.
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Yes, the best wife in the world ;-)
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Well, as I've only got one hand, it does not really scare me more to know that there are 50,000 species of those little devils around - one species alone keeps me on the alert. But I find fleas and bugs by far worse.
And then there are ticks, which in Spanish are so melodiously called "garrapatas" but then most things sound nice in Spanish. This year was a good year for ticks, I'm afraid, and I removed more of those bloodthirsty beasts from my daugther's skin than in all the other years before.
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Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle.
Chapter 8
Charles Edmund Brock
Text Illustrated:
And yet this scene, painful as it was, had its grotesque features, which, in a less interested observer than Nicholas, might have provoked a smile. Mrs. Squeers stood at one of the desks, presiding over an immense basin of brimstone and treacle, of which delicious compound she administered a large instalment to each boy in succession: using for the purpose a common wooden spoon, which might have been originally manufactured for some gigantic top, and which widened every young gentleman’s mouth considerably: they being all obliged, under heavy corporal penalties, to take in the whole of the bowl at a gasp. In another corner, huddled together for companionship, were the little boys who had arrived on the preceding night, three of them in very large leather breeches, and two in old trousers, a something tighter fit than drawers are usually worn; at no great distance from these was seated the juvenile son and heir of Mr Squeers—a striking likeness of his father—kicking, with great vigour, under the hands of Smike, who was fitting upon him a pair of new boots that bore a most suspicious resemblance to those which the least of the little boys had worn on the journey down—as the little boy himself seemed to think, for he was regarding the appropriation with a look of most rueful amazement. Besides these, there was a long row of boys waiting, with countenances of no pleasant anticipation, to be treacled; and another file, who had just escaped from the infliction, making a variety of wry mouths indicative of anything but satisfaction. The whole were attired in such motley, ill-assorted, extraordinary garments, as would have been irresistibly ridiculous, but for the foul appearance of dirt, disorder, and disease, with which they were associated.
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Thanks a lot for going through the trouble and adding all those illustrations to the proper threads, Kim!
The Old Curiosity Club
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Don Quixote (other topics)Don Quixote (other topics)
I am actually quite good at making people worry about out-of-the-way things, but bug-infested books seem to occur more often than one should think.
I know we have already discussed this subject, probably in the old club, but what I do after buying second-hand books, which sometimes is necessary when a book is out of print, is, I wrap the book into clingwrap and then put it into the deep-freeze for a couple of weeks. One could also put them into an oven and put the fire on but this is often very detrimental to the book. The clingwrap protects the book from the ice in the deep-freeze, however, but the bugs will not be able to survive those low temperatures for a month or so.
My wife once noticed that several drawers in our deep-freeze were occupied by books, and she told me that it was high time I started reading some fresh literature.