(6) Natural liquid goudrons are solutions of more or less oxidized (resinified) solid hydrocarbons in liquid hydrocarbons, and are therefore thick and viscous.

None of these descriptions seems to give you a clue to the intrinsic seventeenness of 17 – the unique feature which makes it the very number that it is.

'[…] ye ill-farren, useless bowdikite!' said she, as she swashed the dishclout about my lugs,

I contrived for some time to carry on something like a conversation with this woman, but was soon glad to put an end to it by recurring to my bottle.