Friday Vocabulary

1. paraphyletic — of or related to taxonomic group containing most but not all of the descendants of a common ancestor

The Italic branch of Indo-European is paraphyletic as usually delineated, as it leaves out the modern Romance languages.

 

2. aorist — simple past tense in Ancient Greek, with no further limitations or restrictions; undefined

While the aorist usually denotes action occurring in the past, it is important that the action so denoted is conceived of as being completed, as in Matthew 26:65.

 

3. hyalescent — becoming translucent or transparent, turning or being hyaline

Staring at my face in the mirror, the skin on my forehead seemed hyalescent as I clearly saw the blood coursing through the vessels pulsing at my temples.

 

4. formication — sensation as if ants are crawling on one’s skin

I do not trouble myself too much when I have infrequent bouts of formication—all of us have our moments both good and ill—but I do begin to worry when I actually see the little buggers crawling across my forearms and legs.

 

5. frot — to rub, to chafe, to stroke; [tanning] to make supple by rubbing

By frotting firmly the injured leg, we lessened the animal’s pain.

 

6. flavid — yellow, sulphur yellow

The package oozed a bright flavid goo at one corner, and suddenly I imagined I smelt some indefinable something in the air.

 

7. eyas — nestling hawk, esp. one removed from nest for training

Many months were spent training the eyas simply to fly, for he had been taken too early from the nest.

 

8. ciborium — baldachin, canopy over a high altar; receptacle for the Eucharist

The wash basin had been fashioned from a bronze ciborium pilfered from the nearby demolished church, and the hammered letters “IHS” were still faintly visible.

 

9. hypocephalus — small disks placed beneath head of the dead in Late Period Egyptian funeral practice

Joseph Smith’s purported translation of the hypocephali which he studied was no more credible than that of ancient Mayan by most so-called experts before 1950.

 

10. tonitruate — to thunder

We found the back entrance of the club easily, led by the pounding bass that tonitruated through the walls.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British)

cuckooing — exploitation of vulnerable people’s homes for criminal activity, esp. that related to the distribution of drugs

The explosion of county lines drug trafficking has seen a concomitant rise in cuckooing as weak-minded individuals are coerced into letting their flats or houses become storage depots for drugs.

Monday Book Report: Fear to Tread

Fear to Tread, by Michael Gilbert

Michael Gilbert has proven to be one of the most consistent, most versatile, and most surprising writers of thrillers and suchlike dark fiction. Not that his books are dark—far from it. At their core is an almost quaint sensibility of the power of human goodness, even as recognition that the not-so-nice aspects of the psyche often hold sway, even rule … for a time. Now when I say “proven to be” consistent and versatile, I of course mean proven to me, at least for the seven books of his (out of thirty [!]) I have read. Few other authors have offered such compelling stories with such diverse action as Trouble, The 92nd Tiger, Death in Captivity, The Queen Against Karl Mullen, and—one of the best books I’ve read in the past five years—The Killing of Katie Steelstock (originally published as Death of a Favourite Girl in the UK). And now comes another brilliant offering from the schoolmaster turned solicitor who wrote his fiction during his daily commute (as I learn from Wikipedia), Fear to Tread. It was his seventh book, published in 1953. Would that all of us look so sharp as we approach our septuagenarian years!

He had things to think about. If he went home his wife would talk to him and that would stop him thinking about them. He could not, by any stretch of imagination, talk to her about it. He had discovered that early in his married life. Although he was very genuinely in love with her, he could not talk to her about things that mattered. Perhaps all married people were like that.

Mr. Wetherall considers his problem

Mr. Wetherall is everyman, an everyman we perhaps once aspired to be, before the corruption of time and the times put paid to our youthful dreams of heroism and doing the right thing. Perhaps Michael Gilbert true genius is his ability to create a believable hero who stands against the forces of evil with a stout heart and a not entirely grim determination perhaps it lies in his power to craft a plot that permits him to hold his own against terrific odds and eventually … but that would be telling, now wouldn’t it? Suffice it to say that little by slow the headmaster of a small boys’ school on the wrong side of the Thames becomes embroiled with nefarious acts and actors until everything he holds dear is threatened. A most plausibly implausible plot unfolds bit by bit and the reader is carried along by the ever-quickening stream of incident and action until what began as a trifling kerfuffle becomes a titanic struggle between civilization and those in opposition, or at least, a bigger kerfuffle.

He was fully aware of the curious strands of his own character. But the fact that he recognized them, as any toper or drug addict may recognize and deplore his own weaknesses, did not make him competent to counteract them.

Mr. Wetherall puts his finger on the problem with Socrates’ dictum to ‘Know thyself’

As is often the case with Mr. Gilbert’s novels, the book is a tale of ordinary people, much like you and I, caught up in extraordinary events, though in this case the events affect everyone in England in greater or lesser fashion. The plot centers around the illegal foods trade, a serious problem in Britain in the post-war era, when rationing was still necessary in the face of continued privation after straining both physical and psychical resources to the maximum in the fight against fascism. The action begins quite modestly, with our stolid protagonist Mr. Wetherall (whose significant name I only now notice) learning that a foods parcel sent to him from a dear friend in Canada has gone missing. A whole host of only peripherally related events link together to propel him into a life-and-death struggle with the criminal powers behind a thriving black market in food and drink.

It was people, really, thought Mr. Wetherall. When it came to the point you’d do things for people that you’d never dream of doing for patriotism or politics or principles. Unimportant people.

What we believe is one thing; what we do is often quite another

I shouldn’t (and shan’t) give away too much of the plot; you really should check out Gilbert’s oeuvre for yourself—he’s that good. But the characters are engaging, if a bit dated, as is the devotion to some principle besides … well, no principle at all, I suppose. Written in 1953, before England entirely realized that not only was the Empire gone, but so too were the public school ideals that lived in symbiosis with that Empire, Fear to Tread espouses hope for standards which seem almost quaint nowadays, as I said previously. As even Mr. Wetherall recognizes in the quote above, principles are all very well and good, but at core you have to believe in something even deeper, if you’re going to believe in anything at all. But what have we lost when we lost the world in which such aspirations could take root and hold fast against the inclement storms and wearying trials of life as it is actually lived? Perhaps, as the title suggests, Mr. Wetherall is in the end a bit of a fool. But this reader, for one, wishes we had fewer fools of the modern stripe, and had more fools like him.

Friday Vocabulary

1. farrago — confused mixture, hotchpotch, medley

Even taking the few moments needed to look up the actual facts to rebut this farrago of nonsense is a waste of my time.

 

2. crassities — [obsolete] materiality, density

The soul must be devoid of crassities, taught the philosopher, else it could be broken into separate parts, but instead, the subtle nature of the soul permits it to pass though all the material of the universe with neither division nor diminution.

 

3. subacid — slightly sour; somewhat sharp or biting in tone or attitude

Percy seemed always to speak in a languid, almost lazy, manner, but his words usually carried a subacid sting that could wound its target most effectively.

 

4. widdershins (also withershins) — in a direction opposite to the usual, the wrong way; in a direction opposite to the sun’s course through the sky

The foul witch’s spell (not so much evil as black with folk superstition) next called for us to march widdershins around the grave before appropriating dirt from the freshly made mound.

 

5. bangtail — [slang] racehorse

She said she liked horses so I took her down to Del Mar and let her study the bangtails while I studied her.

 

6. whirlicue — merry-go-round

In my condition the gyrations of the wooden horse on the whirlicue just made me more nauseous, and made my headache come back to boot.

 

7. lanx — large serving platter used in ancient Rome

To our horror we learned that Petey had melted down the precious lanx for its silver, destroying centuries of beauty and measureless monetary value.

 

8. captious — caviling, faultfinding, apt to seize upon trivial mistakes or defects; sophistical, disposed to deceive in argument or debate

Seemingly the captious cowards have captured the legislative body, and now days of useless debate are followed by bold and vigorous inaction.

 

9. sarcenet (also sarsenet) — very fine soft silk fabric now used chiefly for linings

Lulled by her sarcenet words I quelled my misgivings and ordered another bottle of wine.

 

10. cachinnation — immoderate or loud laughter

I used the cover of their boisterous cachinnation to unlock the deadbolt on the door.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Scots)

chiel — young lad, fellow

Mabley was ne’er looked on as one of our group, more like a chiel taking notes for some book he hoped to write one day.

Friday Vocabulary

1. scorbutic — of, related to, or symptomatic of scurvy

The words of denial escaped painfully from his swollen, scorbutic gums.

 

2. undercroft — underground chamber or vault, crypt

The keys to the undercroft had gone missing in my grandfather’s time, so the police were forced to wrench open the rusted gates during their search.

 

3. syndicalism — movement espousing the transfer of control of the means of production and distribution to workers’ unions

The failure of American syndicalism and the oblivion into which the IWW have been consigned mean the lessons of the Lawrence strike have been almost entirely forgotten.

 

4. gravel — to perplex; [obsolete] to run aground

Fully a score of vessels were gravelled on the sandy beaches of our southeastern shores, though we still have no news of their crews.

 

5. grot — [literary] grotto

His elfin grot consisted mainly of a small chamber at the bottom of the stairs, illuminated solely by the pallid and leprous glow of the three (or was it four?) screens of the various computers and consoles at which he played video games all the day and night.

 

6. fipple — mouthpiece of certain recorders and flutes, with a fixed sharp edge against which the blown air is directed

Of course the recorder will need no tuning, but the tone does grow clearer as the fipple warms, so the player should take time to run through the usual ‘warm-up’ exercises before performing.

 

7. cavernicolous — living in caves

Jerome’s skin had the unhealthy pallor common to cavernicolous plants and animals.

 

8. blake — [obsolete] to become pale

Gabby’s face blaked as she realized the full import of our news.

 

9. nef — table accessory in the shape of a boat, used to hold utensils etc.; incense-boat

At the center of the table stood a golden nef holding jellies and other condiments, resting upon a set of rich pillows decorated to mimic the roiling seas.

 

10. commination — denunciation portending divine vengeance

Doctor Cobbledick was of the old school, and thought it his duty to issue comminations against the assembled sinners as if he were the very herald of the Lord, a modern Jeremiah sworn to call back the faithless from the brink of the pit.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

side — supercilious attitude

Though he is an expert—perhaps the expert—in the field of astrological forensics, he is quite agreeable company for all that and singularly free from side.

One Hundred and Nineteen Thousand (119,000) Songs

Around ten thirty this morning I once more crossed an imaginary line in my mind and find that I have now listened to 119,000 unique iTunes ‘songs’.* The 119,000th track was a fairly pedestrian effort by Glenn Miller’s band, with vocals by Ray Eberle, “And the Angels Sing”. It was on a Reader’s Digest compilation I picked up not so very long ago at a La Jolla estate sale, Memories Of You. Not much to say about the tune; there are better Glenn Miller cuts, and better performances by Mr. Eberle. To be fair, I don’t think the underlying chart is all that interesting.

The Stats

As I crossed the imaginary line of 119,000 tracks heard, I find that I’ve listened to (or endured, in some cases) 516 days, 4 hours, 55 minutes, and 27 seconds of total music and other audio (↑ 3 days and 1-1/2 hours), which occupy 796.23 GB of digital ‘space’ (↑ 16.4 GB). Remaining to be heard in my iTunes library are 75,839 tracks, 559 less than last time we spoke—which means I’ve added 441 new files since then. Those unheard tunes take up 518.58 GB (↓ 4.28 GB) of hard drive memory, and would take 261 days, 11 hours, 53 minutes, and 30 seconds (↓ 2 days and 9 hours) to listen toil I were to listen to them straight through.

To reach the 119,000th unique track, I listened to 1,112 songs since track #118,000. Those songs occupy 6.93 GB of data, and 3 days, 7 hours, and 41 minutes of time. Once again I’ve been prioritizing previously unheard tracks, thus the majority of the songs listened to were heard for the first time.

It took 90 days to listen to the last thousand songs, not quite two weeks longer than the previous millennium of tunes. This gives an average pace of a little over 11 new songs heard each day.

11.11 New Tracks Heard per Day

If we include the previously heard songs, we find that I heard 12.4 tracks per day, a drop from the pace of almost fifteen per day I achieved in the previous set of thousand.

12.36 Tracks Heard per Day

I now plan/hope to give a fuller analysis once I hit 120,000 songs. But … we shall see. (Also see the previous post on my iTunes listening for a further note about this sort of data and where I’m at now.)

 

And now I bid you adieu, until the next time.

* As I have said before, I use the term ‘song’ here simply to mean an audio file of any kind, not necessarily a piece of music. Indeed, while much of what I listen to is disdained as not even music by my compadres, even I will admit that many tracks which show up in my random play are not actually music, such as the radio address of Father Charles Couglin I listened to back in June (in which he (surprisingly) spoke in support of President Roosevelt, his usual enemy). However, I’ll use the term as a general catch-all for the various tracks and excerpts and what-have you. Thus radio dramas, sound clips from TV shows, band introductions, children’s stories, WWII news broadcasts, and any other sound files are included in the basket of ‘songs’ as I use this term.

Friday Vocabulary

1. matutinal — of or occurring in the morning

He grabbed the newspaper for his matutinal visit to the smallest room in the house, there to await the results of his first cups of coffee.

 

2. ringent — gaping, grinning

But the lip augmentation was a failure, leaving her mouth looking like a ringent maw of inflated liver.

 

3. huffy — quick to take offense; haughty; sulky

Nicolai was in a huffy mood all evening, making sure everyone at the party knew that he could have been somewhere much more interesting had he not felt sorry for the old gal.

 

4. flageolet — small flute blown from end with four finger holes atop, and two below

Then my grandfather picked up the flageolet and began to trill out a falsetto rendition of “John Brown’s Body”, shocking my grandmother, who had assumed that the thing was a mere decoration.

 

5. chop-logic — disputatious or tendentious argumentation, quibbling

He was not actually interested in hearing the many proofs against the flat earth theory, but only wanted to respond with the same chop-logic and tired questioning of the very conclusions he had been forced to accede to earlier in the discussion.

 

6. judder — to violently shake

After the incident with the cow and the fence post, the frame was badly warped, and the old car juddered and shuddered all the way across the long rickety bridge leaving the county.

 

7. nuchal — of or relating to the nape of the neck

And because he habitually hung down his head, Tom Dooley had a perpetual nuchal sunburn.

 

8. foulard — lightweight cloth of silk or silk and cotton, often with printed design

Once again she felt the weight of her failure, and she almost sobbed to think how proud she’d been of her taffeta gown, only to find that the fashionable women now only wore foulard.

 

9. impi — Zulu warrior unit

Lord Shatterton won a smashing victory in spite of his own incompetence and the courageous impis arrayed against him.

 

10. margarite — [obsolete] a pearl; type of mica supposed to resemble pearls

Do not cast your margarites before hogs.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

shufty (also shufti) — a peep, a look

I’ll just take a walk down the strand, take a quick shufty around to make sure everything still looks good for tonight.

Friday Vocabulary

1. telluric — of or related to the earth; of or from the soil; of or containing tellurium

Zircon turns out to be an unreliable source of data about the telluric history of the earth’s magnetic field, leaving a mystery at the heart of paleomagnetism.

 

2. curate — assistant to rector or vicar

I believe that this small vicarage has grown in both population and need to the extent that my work here should be supplemented by the appointment of a curate to aid me in my duties.

 

3. tyne (also tine)— to close or shut

I should rather you tyne your eyes forever than to behold me now, reft of all decency and honor, a dark stain upon the shining samite of society.

 

4. tine — [Scots] to lose

Though he tint his fortune he kept his friends.

 

5. apophenia — tendency to incorrectly perceive connections between unrelated things

We believed her insistence that the new teacher resembled Mr. Scudder was merely apophenia, but it turned out to be our first inkling of the entire sinister plot.

 

6. samphire — edible succulent growing on rocks by the sea

The rocky escarpment was a harsh and unforgiving home, furnishing only a meager subsistence for the samphire gatherers who tore their hands collecting baskets full for the market.

 

7. aphelion — point at which a body in solar orbit is farthest from the sun

Though it may seem contradictory to those sweltering in the summer of the northern hemisphere, the earth passed through aphelion just this week.

 

8. atresic — of or related to congenital lack or pathological obstruction of bodily cavity or opening

Like many people, he is full of shit; unlike most, however, his condition is caused by his atresic butthole.

 

9. bubblehead — dolt, stupid person

“He’s a complete bubblehead, investing all his savings into plastics on the say-so of one stranger he met at a party.”

 

10. sapiosexual — person sexually attracted by intelligence

A practicing sapiosexual may find a devotion to nerd interests helpful, as well as an insouciant attitude toward social norms such as chewing with one’s mouth closed or acceptable levels of body odor.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(British slang)

n.b.g. — no bloody good

I had planned on arriving early for the interview, but of course Simon’s car was n.b.g. and one of the tyres had a puncture so I was late.

Friday Vocabulary

1. adumbrate — to outline; to foreshadow; to faintly indicate; to overshadow, to partially conceal

Whereas some biographies illuminate their subjects, Mr. Parker’s paean to the late colonel merely adumbrates what should have been an interesting figure.

 

2. beck — [North England] swift running brook

He knelt alongside the beck and read her letter over and over again, oblivious to the damp moss beneath his legs.

 

3. tallage — arbitrary tax of the Normans and the early Angevins

As incentive the prince was empowered to release all who joined his enterprise from tallage and most previous debts to the crown.

 

4. pole screen — tall thin screen mounted on a pole with adjustable panels, designed to shield a person’s face from the direct heat of a fire

As the wax-based makeup used by both men and women to hide disfiguring scars of plagues became less necessary with a general rise in health, pole screens became smaller and more purely decorative.

 

5. schiltron — tight formation of pikemen in which the two-handed weapons face forward, though circular formations have been noted

Though of course the ideal usage of pikes was the square which the Swiss perfected, the Scottish schiltron has the advantage of not requiring the years of training and incredible discipline necessary to make the complicated evolutions of the former.

 

6. eschatological — of or pertaining to the science or study of last things: death, judgment, heaven, hell

As the decade wound to a close, his articles took on a decidedly eschatological tone, mirroring perhaps his own preoccupation with the course of his partner’s debilitating disease.

 

7. deglutition — the act of swallowing

Alone among the foods oysters on the half shell skip mastication entirely and are enjoyed in a single savory deglutition.

 

8. purblind — almost entirely blind

His purblind followers have encouraged his most reactionary traits, and share the blame for the inevitable disaster shortly to come.

 

9. garimpeiro — [Brazil] mineral prospector

I found Jonesie sitting at a rough-hewn table of Parana pine, regaling a group of credulous garimpeiros with his usual lies about fabulous treasures he had found and lost.

 

10. urticaria — hives

“I’ll prescribe some antihistamines for your urticaria, and you may want to take a cool bath if the itching becomes worse.”

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. pismire — ant

He strode the city like a bull, but he was felled by the prattling pismires of this toxic town.

 

2. inviolacy — freedom from violation or desecration

As we met more of our neighbors, I realized that this small trailer park was somehow untouched by the sordid changes that seemed to have overtaken the rest of my hometown, that a hallowed inviolacy had somehow protected this small island of kindness and friendliness which stood in sharp contrast to the uncaring and rude apartment tower we had just had to flee.

 

3. rusk — dry biscuit, twice-baked bread

Kincaid soaked up the juice of the steak with a bit of rusk, washing down his last bites with a final swallow of the slightly sour wine.

 

4. cofferdam — watertight enclosure pumped dry to create space where underwater work may proceed in normal conditions

The structure had been entirely engulfed by the rising lake, so we built a cofferdam out from the shore to permit our treasure hunt to continue in the silt and mire.

 

5. boreal — of the north, of the north wind

“An hour? Two or three? I cannot tell; distances are notoriously difficult to judge in this boreal light.”

 

6. fulgent — shining brightly

Just as we began to despair, the clouds broke and we saw the gold-capped mountain before us, bathed in the fulgent light of the western sun.

 

7. pink — to perforate, to decorate by scalloping and punching out a pattern; to pierce, to stab

Watching the line of our injured prisoners shuffling past, I vowed never to let myself be pinked by such rebel scum.

 

8. odium — intense hatred or disgust; opprobrium, reproach

In spite of the odium directed against him by the entire community, Salazar continued to attend church services every Sunday, sitting in his usual place in the now empty pew.

 

9. manky — [British informal] worthless; unpleasant, foul

I finally found the planning office, next to a manky men’s room at the far end of the basement.

 

10. sylph — aerial spirit; slender girl or woman

Moira leaped down from the prow like some sylph descending to earth.

 

Friday Vocabulary

1. scarehead — newspaper headline printed in huge type

As the scareheads of every European daily proclaimed the approach to the very brink of war, events in this tiny Balkan town conspired to slow the fevered sale of the screaming newspapers.

 

2. saltatory — characterized by or adapted for leaping or dancing movement

Suddenly the entire kindergarten class seemed to collapse as one, exhausted by strenuous saltatory exertions and feeling the need for naptime.

 

3. dispositive — relating to settlement or disposition

But it was the secretary’s deposition which proved dispositive in the lawsuit, undermining the assertions of both partners and providing a different explanation for the missing pants.

 

4. immiserate — to make impoverished; to make miserable

Once again the voters have spoken, voting to immiserate themselves, to deny themselves access to healthcare and assistance, and to make more rich the richest.

 

5. pounce — [archaic] claw or talon of a bird

If your hawk should break or lose her pounce, apply hen’s gall to the portion remaining, to stop up the blood, and bind closely, taking care to hood your bird so that her claw may heal or grow again.

 

6. pounce — to smooth with fine powder or pumice; to sprinkle with fine dust or powder

I could hardly restrain a shudder as I beheld my cousin, her once beautiful face so pounced and dappled with white powder as to appear rather leprous than fashionable.

 

7. pounce — to beat, to grind, to bruise, to stab

After the leaves have thoroughly dried, remove as much of the stem and ribs as possible and pounce the remainder into a fine powder.

 

8. bartizan (also bartisan) — small overhanging turret

From the bartizan Sir Rollin enjoyed the view of the St. Swithin’s Day fair, happy for the tidings of fair weather to come.

 

9. flocculus — dark or light patch on the surface of the sun

The bright flocculi are calcium clouds whereas the darker patches are clouds of hydrogen vapor.

 

10. prang — [British slang] to bomb; to crash

Just as I was leaving the lot some idiot pranged my new car, stove in the left side door and nearly did for me.

 

11. athodyd — ramjet

Although original ramjet implementations slowed incoming air to subsonic speeds before combustion, newer athodyd designs allow for air flow at supersonic speed, permitting operation above Mach 6.

 

12. glossopetra — tongue-shaped precious stone

In olden times glossopetrae were supposed to have many and varied magical powers; today, however, we know these ‘rocks’ to be merely fossilized shark teeth.

 

13. swarf — filings or fine grit from operation of grinder, axle, or other abrasive machining

After the hole is drilled it must be carefully cleared of swarf or chips (usually with compressed air) before tapping, after which any newly created debris should also be removed.

 

14. swarf — [Scots] fainting spell, swoon

Whether from fatigue due to self-abnegation, or mere lethargy, I fell into a swarf and only came to as the sun was just rising, finding myself lying upon the cold stone floor.

 

15. cack-handed — [British informal] clumsy, ham-fisted; left-handed

I’m not saying your cack-handed efforts have made the situation any worse; I don’t think even Kissinger could have made peace between those two.

 

16. jeepney — two-bench jitney bus, usually with bright-colored and garish designs, commonly used throughout the Philippines

Once a common sight throughout Manilla, the utilitarian and sometimes barely roadworthy jeepney may go the way of the horse-drawn carriage, another victim of modern regulation and its evil twin, ride-sharing services.

 

17. piggin — small wooden pail with one stave left longer than the others to form a handle; milk pail

Dorrie ran down the stream with a piggin to fetch water for the injured stranger.

 

18. hypethral (also hypaethral) — open to the sky, without a roof

The damage to the roof was never repaired, owing to lack of funds and expertise, and so the ruin became once again the hypethral temple it had originally been.

 

19. loggerhead — blockhead, dunderhead; long-handled iron implement with bulb or ball on the end used for heating liquids or melting tar; post at stern of whaleboat for wrapping a line to

He was blessed with two beautiful daughters and a brilliant son, as well as one boy who was a complete loggerhead, fit only for politics or the law.

 

20. burgage — tenure of land in town belonging to the king or other lord, the tenants paying annual rent or service

Sir Lowther famously made Cockermouth a pocket borough by the simple expedient of gaining control of the majority of burgages through outright purchase, at the immense expenditure of over £58,000.

 

Bonus Vocabulary

(Latin)

nunc dimittis — permission to leave (from the opening words of the Canticle of Simeon)

Mr. Hereward simply shook his head and returned his attention to the papers upon his desk, which I took as his nunc dimittis and signal that my interrogation was at an end.