Q. What amount, in cubic feet, would there be in Port Huron for one year, of fecal and urinal discharge into the sewers?

And yonder, that old cupster, Silenus, that horrible old favourite, wobbles along on a donkey, and would tumble off, you may be sure, were he not upheld by two fairly sober Satyrs.

She is probably assigning me a price (she works for the auctioneeress, so she must know how much money it takes to stop a bowl with my features).[…]Nikki tries to see the auctioneeress, but she is out.[…]Rosa has told him that I’ve been given back to the custody of the auctioneeress, and she, conveniently, as Rosa knows, is away on holiday for two weeks in an unobtainable style. Which is doubly convenient for Rosa, since the auctioneeress, too, has been asking for me.[…]She planned to stay for a few weeks, but she gets a call from the auctioneeress telling her about a pair of earrings.[…]The auctioneeress arrives, and I am packed away.[…]We stop outside as the auctioneeress delves into her purse for her car keys. The auctioneeress can’t hear it, but I can perceive the phone ringing in Rosa’s flat.

The temptation is to regard him [John Ogdon] as an idiot savant, a big talent bottled inside a recalcitrant body and accompanied by a personality that seems not just unremarkable, but almost entirely blank.