I remembered that Beethoven's symphonies had sometimes been given names... they should have call [the Fifth] the Vampire, because it simply refused to lie down and die.

Cheese!" I exclaimed. It was a secret prayer, whose meaning was known only to God and to me.

Mother Goose!I have never much cared for flippant remarks, especially when others make them, and in particular, I don't give a frog's fundament for them when they come from an adult.

But what he said was true enough: I had recently destroyed a perfectly good set of wire braces by straightening them to pick a lock. Father had grumbled, of course, but had made another appointment to have me netted and dragged back up to London, to that third-floor ironmonger's shop in Farringdon Street, where I would be strapped to a board like Boris Karloff as various bits of ironmongery were shoved into my mouth, screwed in, and bolted to my gums.

Are you provoking your sister again, Flavia," Father asked, looking up from his journal, but leaving a forefinger on the page to mark his place."I was trying to discuss current events," I said. "But she doesn't seem much interested.""Ah," Father said, and went back to reading about plate flaws in the 1840 tuppenny blue.

I do not encourage early morning chirpiness, even in those whom I know and love. It is generally a sign of a sloppy mind, and is not to be encouraged.