Sherry Chandler » Lud-in-the-Mist familiar
Lud-in-the-Mist familiar
The clockmaker’s apprentice is sent to wind the clock of the mayor, N. Chanticleer, who has suffered a loss of face:
“Certainly a very respectable young man, and one who was evidently fully aware of the unsavoury rumours that were circulating concerning the house of Chanticleer; for he looked with such horror at the silly moon-face with its absurd revolving moustachios of Master Nathaniel’s grandfather’s clock, and opened its body so gingerly, and, when he had adjusted its pendulum, wiped his fingers on his pocket handkerchief with such an expression of disgust, that the innocent timepiece might have been the wicked mayor’s familiar–a grotesque hobgoblin tabby cat, purring, and licking her whiskers after an obscene orgy of garbage.”
Passage from Hope Mirrlees, Lud-in-the-Mist (Millennium 2001), originally published 1926
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2 Comments
1. Tommy replies at 30th November 2007, 10:00 am :
Ah yes, shaming. Such a wonderful mechanism for enforcing societal norms….
I’ll try and find a copy down here.
2. sherry replies at 30th November 2007, 10:04 am :
Lud-in-the-Mist is well worth reading, Tommy.
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