"Lacon, or Many Things in few Words.."

"Mr Redding draws the following picture of Mr. Colton's lodgings in [Princes Street], London.

'His sitting-room was carpetless; a common deal table stood in the centre, and a broken phial placed in a tea-saucer served for an inkstand, surrounded with letter covers and paper scraps.  Four common chairs, one or two rickety, a side table holding a few books, half a quire of foolscap paper, and some discarded pens, on one side of the room, composed nearly all the furniture, fishing-rods and gun excepted.  Here he indited Lacon.  His copy was written on scraps of paper, blank sides of letters, and but rarely on bran-new paper.  It is untrue that his rooms were as bad as some penny-a-line scribbler made out in a newspaper sketch of him.  They were always clean …'  "

Village London. part 4,  Edward Walford,  quoting Cyrus Redding's Recollections on C.C. Colton, Vicar of Kew and Petersham

Prince Giglio and the Fairy Blackstick's Bag

"He took a modest lodging opposite the Schools, paid his bill at the inn, and went to his apartment with his trunk, his carpet-bag, and not forgetting we may be sure, his other bag.

When he opened his trunk, which the day before he had filled with his best clothes, he found it contained only books,  and in the first of them which he opened there was written--
    'Clothes for the back, books for the head;
    Read, and remember them when they are read.'

And in his bag, when Giglio looked in it, he found a student's cap and gown, a writing-book full of paper, an inkstand, pens, and a Johnson's dictionary, which was very useful to him, as his spelling had been sadly neglected.

So he sat down and worked very, very hard for a whole year, during which 'Mr. Giles' was quite an example to all the students in the University of Bosforo."

The Ballad of the Rose and the Ring  William M. Thackeray

Trial by Jury?

"The jury all wrote down on their slates, ' She doesn't believe there's an atom of meaning in it,'  but none of them attempted to explain the paper.....


'Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to the tarts on the table.  'Nothing can be clearer than that.  Then again -- 'before she had this fit'-- you never had fits, my dear, I think?'  he said to the Queen.

'Never!'  said the Queen furiously throwing an inkstand at the Lizard as she spoke. (The unfortunate little Bill had left off writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink that was trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

'Then the words don't fit you,'  said the King, looking round the court with a smile.  There was a dead silence.
'It's a pun!'  the King added in an angry tone, and everybody laughed. ' Let the jury consider their verdict,' the King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

'No, no!' said the Queen.  'Sentence first -- verdict afterwards.'
'Stuff and nonsense!'  said Alice loudly.  'The idea of having the sentence first!'
'Hold your tongue!'  said the Queen.
'I won't!'  said Alice.
'Off with her head!'  the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.  Nobody  moved.
'Who cares for you?'  said Alice, (she had grown to her full size by this time).  'You're nothing but a pack of cards!'  "

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland  Lewis Carroll

Quilp's pen

"It was a dirty little box, this counting house, with nothing in it but an old ricketty desk and two stools, a hat-peg, an ancient almanack, an inkstand with no ink and the stump of one pen, and an eight-day clock which hadn't gone for eighteen years at least, and of which the minute-hand had been twisted off for a toothpick.  Daniel Quilp pulled his hat over his brows, climbed on to the desk (which had a flat top), and stretching his short length upon it went to sleep with the ease of an old practitioner; intending, no doubt, to compensate himself for the deprivation of last night's rest, by a long and sound nap."

The Old Curiosity Shop  Charles Dickens