Those unacquainted with the pawky humor of the Scot will search unsuccessfully in reference books for mention of the elusive Colonel Boffin.

And the most dishonest are the journalists who come to report the event with a keyboardful of appropriate miracle cliches.

… and the third with an harp, and they please so shipmen, with likeness of song, that they draw them to peril and to shipbreach [shipwreck], but the sooth [truth] is, that they were strong [w]hores, that drew men that passed by them to poverty and to mischief.

And I will make all my mountains a way, and my highways shall be exalted. Behold, these shall come from far: and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim.