He has been in all situations and occupations of life, according to his own account ; a potboy at Hampstead, a shoeblack, a chimney-sweeper, an East India Director, a kennel-raker, a gold-finder, an oyster-woman, a Jew cast-clothesman, a police justice, a judge, a keeper of Newgate, and, as he styles it, 'His Majesty's law iron-monger for the home department:' nay, he has even been Jack Ketch, and has hung hundreds; he has been a soldier, and has killed thousands; a Portuguese, and poniarded scores; a Jew pedlar, and cheated all the world; a member of Parliament for London, and betrayed his constituents; a Lord Mayor, a bishop, an admiral, a dancing-master, a Rabbi, Grimaldi in the pantomime, and ten thousand other occupations, that no tongue or memory but his own could enumerate.
Edith Wharton, a foodista who knows better, links only unidentified cheeses to unhappy love affairs in Summer and Hudson River Bracketed.
What is your name? she said. … My name's Ermengarde St. John, she answered. / Mine is Sara Crewe, said Sara. Yours is very pretty. It sounds like a story-book.
If you wonder why folks can't take the news seriously, here's Exhibit A, said one blogger. Lord Jesus, how can the reporter file this story with a straight face?
