Johnyxxx
Senior Member
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2014
- Member Type
- Interested in Language
- Native Language
- Czech
- Home Country
- Czech Republic
- Current Location
- Czech Republic
Hi,
Can anybody explain to me what the author means by cats and sherry and what is the meaning of the bold text?
‘I’m not attesting, mind you, that he was confirmed at it, no more than that I’m a man to be measuring what’s given me to take charge of by tenths of inches. It’s the principle of the thing. You might have thought, too, that a simple honest pride would have kept him back. Nothing of the sort; and no matter, wine or spirits. I’d watch him there, though he couldn’t see me, being behind the door. And practices like that, sir, as you will agree with me, can’t go on. They couldn’t go on, vicarage or no vicarage. Besides, from being secret it began to be open. It had gone too far. Brazen it out: that was the lay. I came down one fine morning to find one of my best decanters smashed to smithereens on the stone floor, Irish glass and all. Cats and sherry, who ever heard of it? And out of revenge he filled the pantry with wasps by bringing in over-ripe plums. Petty waste of time like that. And some of the green-houses thick with blight!
Crewe by Walter de la Mare, 1929
Thank you very much.
Can anybody explain to me what the author means by cats and sherry and what is the meaning of the bold text?
‘I’m not attesting, mind you, that he was confirmed at it, no more than that I’m a man to be measuring what’s given me to take charge of by tenths of inches. It’s the principle of the thing. You might have thought, too, that a simple honest pride would have kept him back. Nothing of the sort; and no matter, wine or spirits. I’d watch him there, though he couldn’t see me, being behind the door. And practices like that, sir, as you will agree with me, can’t go on. They couldn’t go on, vicarage or no vicarage. Besides, from being secret it began to be open. It had gone too far. Brazen it out: that was the lay. I came down one fine morning to find one of my best decanters smashed to smithereens on the stone floor, Irish glass and all. Cats and sherry, who ever heard of it? And out of revenge he filled the pantry with wasps by bringing in over-ripe plums. Petty waste of time like that. And some of the green-houses thick with blight!
Crewe by Walter de la Mare, 1929
Thank you very much.