Manchurian Books

My uncle brought early nineteenth-century memoirs, soaked
himself in the style, and devised stories about old Moggs the First and
the Duke of Wellington, George the Third and the soap dealer ("almost
certainly old Moggs"). Very soon we had added to the original Moggs'
Primrose several varieties of scented and superfatted, a "special
nurseries used in the household of the Duke of Kent and for the old
Queen in Infancy," a plate powder, "the Paragon," and a knife powder.
We roped in a good little second-rate black-lead firm, and carried their
origins back into the mists of antiquity. It was my uncle's own unaided
idea that we should associate that commodity with the Black Prince. He
became industriously curious about the past of black-lead. I remember
his button-holing the president of the Pepys Society.
"I say, is there any black-lead in Pepys? You know--black-lead--for
grates! OR DOES HE PASS IT OVER AS A MATTER OF COURSE?"
He became in those days the terror of eminent historians. "Don't want
your drum and trumpet history--no fear," he used to say.


Pages:
343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367