I've no idea what they're going on about - it's all mahogany gaspipe to me - but next thing Brendan tips me the nod and a wink and gives me to understand that the job is oxo.

He saw himself, in a smart suit and a songkok, bowed into the opulent suites of Ritzes and Waldorfs and baring, under dark glasses, a hairy chest to a milder sun by a snakeless sea.

They stood outside the door hunching themselves against the rain and puffing on their cigarettes.

Many and many a night have I been called up to see or hear the spökeri (witchcraft or ghostcraft). The peasants would recount that in an upper room they had distinctly heard the spirits throwing the tin vessels and the chairs at each other — then a violent struggle between the demons, and all would be quiet.