-------------Forwarded Message-----------------
From: Peter Lewis, 106066.2074
To: Mitsuharu Matsuoka, INTERNET:[log in to unmask]
Date: 11/9/00 7:17 PM
RE: At the End of the Passage
Dear Mitsuharu Matsuoka,
John Radcliffe has passed your query to me to reply.
I think that 'bricks to the feet' refers to the old practice of
warming a part of the body by heating up a brick in the oven, wrapping it
in cloth and applying it to the spot. Presumably the patient's
circulation was failing. 'Spitting on the sextant' - yes, I think this is
meant literally. 'I judge no man this weather' - you have interpreted
this correctly.
Chucks was a character in the boy's novel 'Peter Simple', by
Captain Marryat. In the story 'The Propagation of Knowledge' (collected
in Debits and Credits, also in The Complete Stalky & Co.), Kipling writes
that when a schoolmaster loses his temper, one of the boys quotes 'Allow me
to observe - in the most delicate manner in the world - just to hint -
You're a damned trencher-scrapin', napkin-carryin', shillin-seekin',
up-and-down-stairs &c.' Kipling adds, 'Beetle choked on the sudden
knowledge that King [the master] was the ancient and eternal Chucks - later
Count Shucksen - of Peter Simple.' '&c.' here presumably means some very
rude and unprintable words. Yours sincerely, Lisa Lewis
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