"Quicksilver"

[fiefoe]

Sometimes they veer dangerously close to romantic comedy territory.

• "'Tis very sad-a strapping fellow such as you - strong and shapely-buttocks like the shell-halves of an English walnut - a fine set of calves - handsome, after a fashion - never to have children."
• But whenever they'd neared any kind of settlement, and especially nunneries (which were thick as fleas in this Popish land), the tongue would go into action and reach some highly interesting moment in the tale just as they were passing by town's gate or the nunnery's door.
• "In some of these strange Gothickal German towns," he at last said, "they have ancient clocks that are as big as houses, all sealed up most of the time, with a little door where a cuckoo pops out upon the hour to sing. But once a day, it does something special, involving more doors, and once a week, something even specialer, and, for all I know, at the year, decade, and century marks, rows of great doors, all sealed shut by dust and age, creak open, driven by sudden descent of ancient weights on rusted chains, and the whole inner workings of the thing unfold through those openings. Hitherto unseen machines grind into action, strange and surprising things fly out - flags wave, mechanical birds sing - old pigeon-shit and cobwebs raining down on spectators' heads - Death comes out and does a fandango - Angels blow trumpets ..."
• "Each share is called a kux." "And by share, I suppose you mean-?" "Same as when thieves divvy up their swag." "I was going to liken it to how sailors partake of a voyage's proceeds , but you stooped lower, faster."
• Jack had at first been surprised, and was now growingly annoyed, that other men were capable of noticing Eliza's beauty-he suspected that they did so in some hase way altogether different from how he did it.
  

It's very gratifying to see 'velleity' used in a sentence. If only one knows how to pronounce 'skwsh' - heel-hickeys in Qwghlmian.

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