He wondered if any of the boys had a grandmother like his, a woman with knowledge and secrets and a gentle habit of helping you up your game.

Missinaba County […] is a regular hive of politics, and not the miserable, crooked, money-ridden politics of the cities, but the straight, real old-fashioned thing that is an honour to the country side.

He must have promptly rejected an alternative explanation which would better fulfill the demands of verisimilitude (“My wife, poor thing, in her nervous condition, now is afflicted also with sleepwalking!”), seeing the laborious tasks to which the resumed somnambulist devotes herself: kneeling at the edge of a pit, she anoints the earth with murky philters (unless the implements she holds in her hand are to be interpreted actually as acetylene torches scattering sparks, to melt the lead seals of a coffin).

The first Chromebooks shipped in 2011, and have since been joined by Chromeboxes and Chromebits headless clients that connect to a keyboard, mouse and display and a small number of all-in-ones.