by high school he was basketballing with the best of an all-Negro league

Coordinate term: link farm

Let a watch be contrived and constructed ever so ingeniously: be its parts ever so many, ever so complicated, ever so finely wrought, or artificially put together, it cannot go without a weight or spring, that is, without a force independent of, and ulteriour to, its mechanism.

He tossed the chunk of soft wood in his hand measuringly, then, humming something utterly tuneless to my ears, set to work.