1.
We decided that a man's personal odour had little to do with the
laws of cricket, and the batsman continued his innings. But, an over
or two later, there was a legitimate appeal against him. In attempting
a leg hit, he had flicked a strap of his pad and it looked from
point's angle as if he had been caught at wicket.
"Ouchi!" yelled the umpire with great gusto.
"Ouchi!" queried his victim, "and for what reason, O
eater of unclean things, am I ouchi?"
"Rek piffor wikkut!" The decision was rendered to the sky,
resonant with triumphant conviction.
We decided that the batsman had better continue, but he was so shaken
by that time that his stumps were pushed back by the next ball, a
deplorable long-hop.
"Ouchi!" gloated the umpire, "ouchi-ouchi!" and
followed his retreat prancing with glad hoots to the very pavilion.
2.
"Saunders, do you know what Dr Aberford means by the lower classes?"
"Perfectly, my Lord."
"Are there any about here?"
"I am sorry to say they are everywhere, my Lord."
"Get me some."
3.
The bishop crossed the floor soundlessly to ascend the four steps
to the low pulpit. He laid his book carefully on the shelf before him,
paused, and looked up.
'Our beloved sister, Diana... her unfinished work which she now can
never finish... irony of fate not a proper term to apply to the will
of the Lord... He giveth; He taketh away... if He takes away the olive
tree He has given before the fruit has ripened, it is for us to accept
His will... Vessel of His inspiration... Devotion to her
aims... Fortitude... Change in the course of human history... The body
of Thy servant, Diana...'
4. Sweet poet, hired for birthday rhymes, To sing of war choose peaceful times. What though for fifteen years and more Janus hath locked his temple door? Though not a coffee-house we read in Hath mentioned arms this side of Sweden; Nor London Journal's, nor Post-Men, Though fond of warlike lies as most men; Thou still with battles stuff thy head full For must a hero not be dreadful?
5.
"Diddle, diddle, diddle, diddle, dum, dum, dum: hasn't he got
lovely legs?" said the rapturous mother.
"H'm 'm 'm 'm 'm," simmered Mary, burying her lips in the little
fellow's fat neck, by way of kissing him.
"H'm 'm 'm 'm 'm," simmered the mamma, burying her lips
also in his fat round short legs. "He's a dawty little bold
darling, so he is; and he has the nicest little pink legs in all the
world, so he has;" and the simmering and the kissing went on over
again, and as though the ladies were very hungry, and determined to
eat him.
6.
'Do you realise the magnitude of the fixed stars? They are
immense. I have read a book which says that the mind boggles at their
distances. I did not know that word, boggles. I am immediately
founding an Institute for Astronomical Research. I must have
Professors. Cable for them to Europe. Get me tiptop professors, the
best procurable.'
7.
In the meantime the Pyrot case, having been presented to the
Supreme Court by the Keeper of the Seals, it fell to Chaussepied to
examine it and discover its defects, in case any existed. Although as
upright and honest as a man can be, and trained by long habit to
exercise his magistracy without fear or favour, he expected to find in
the documents to be submitted to him proofs of certain guilt and of
obvious criminality. After lengthened difficulties and repeated
refusals on the part of General van Julep, Justice Chaussepied was
allowed to examine the documents. Numbered and initialled they ran to
the number of fourteen millions six hundred and twenty-six thousand
three hundred and twelve. As he studied them the judge was at first
surprised, then astonished, then stupefied, amazed, and, if I dare say
so, flabbergasted. He found among the documents prospectuses of new
fancy shops, newspapers, fashion-plates, paper bags, old business
letters, exercise books, brown paper, green paper for rubbing parquet
floors, playing cards, diagrams, six thousand copies of the 'Key to
Dreams,' but not a single document in which any mention was made of
Pyrot.
8.
The next day was the first of March, and when I awoke, rose, and
opened my curtain, I saw the rising sun struggling through fog. Above
my head, above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds, I
saw a solemn, orbed mass, dark-blue and dim---THE DOME.
9.
Disappointingly, no-one knows why it is called the Devil's
Dyke. The name isn't recorded before the sixteenth century. Standing
as it does in the midst of flat fenlands, it has a kind of menacing,
palpably ancient air, but also a feeling of monumental folly. It
required an immense commitment of labour to construct, but it didn't
take a whole lot of military genius to realize that all an invading
army had to do was go around it, which is what all of them did, and
within no time at all the Devil's Dyke had ceased to have any use at
all except to show people in the fen country what it felt like to be
60 feet high.
10.
For what the author is supposed to do---and I think I am right in
saying that the pure mathematicians are perhaps the guiltiest of the
lot, but scientists in physics and chemistry are not much better---is
to present his result in a manner as though it had been a sudden flash
of inspiration. He is to give no hint of how he ever came to think
about the problem. He then, having stated what his conclusions are,
proceeds to prove them by theorems sufficiently rigorous to browbeat
the reader into acquiescence, if not actual assent. The aim is to
leave as disembodied, as impersonalized a piece of writing as anybody
might be willing to read, knowing that others have to read it if they
wish to know what has been achieved. The paper is likely to tell the
reader almost nothing about how the result was found.
11.
There is to be a twenty-year ban on novels set in Oxford or
Cambridge, and a ten-year ban on other university fiction. No ban on
fiction set in polytechnics (though no subsidy to encourage it). No
ban on novels set in primary schools; a ten-year ban on
secondary-school fiction. A partial ban on growing-up novels (one per
author allowed). A partial ban on novels written in the historic
present (again, one per author). A total ban on novels in which the
main character is a journalist or a television presenter.
12.
'No,' said Professor Finniston. 'All our departments got
daggers. It was hardly a surprise. We are very northern, and remote
from the railway line. To my knowledge none of the subcommittees the
UGC sent out to examine us has ever succeeded in reaching us. Our
reputation is, like most, all gossip, and I fear gossip has never
favoured us.'
'Why is that?' asked Babbacombe.
'My dear fellow', said Finniston, 'we have never deigned to
boast of our reputation, like the vulgar new universities. And
you know many of my colleagues have always refused to publish books,
naturally preferring to transfer their thoughts by word of mouth to
the two or three people who are fit to understand them.'