[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well.

His inscrutable theories would years later become the foundation of a whole new science.

He's a faddy eater.

One morning I had been driven to the precarious refuge afforded by the steps of the inn, after rejecting offers from the Celebrity to join him in a variety of amusements. But even here I was not free from interruption, for he was seated on a horse-block below me, playing with a fox terrier.