In Precis of a Journey, he says: “The O and the Rare in the original slab are so spaced that it is hard to know whether they were meant as one word or two. Was Jack Young who had the inscription cut a punster? Or did the stonecutter misunderstand? Certainly, a play upon words would have been much in the sentiment of the seventeenth century. So I suggest that the well-beloved epitaph may have been intended as Orare Ben Johnson—pray for Ben Jonson (a use of the infinitive frequent in taphology.)[…]”

The text of the Philoxenian as revised by Thomas [of Harqel] is furnished with obeli and asterisks. Most of the MSS. too have critical remarks and readings in the margin.

[…] I was running away from drabness, fustiness, snobbery, the claustrophobia of close horizons, and from my inability, although I am quite an attractive rat, to make headway in the rat-race.

Any Smokey in his Pig-pen within fifty kilometres had hooned up and down the streets towards the chase, sirens and tyres screaming, whether they could get into the actual pursuit or not, and all the criminals were glued to their TV's for the endless repeats of the demise of the gunmen in a mid-air ball of fire, […]