Wednesday, December 28, 2011
The Great Twalmley
James Boswell, Life of Johnson (anno 1783, aetat. 74):
Newer› ‹Older
Once, when checking my boasting too frequently of myself in company, he said to me, 'Boswell, you often vaunt so much, as to provoke ridicule. You put me in mind of a man who was standing in the kitchen of an inn with his back to the fire, and thus accosted the person next him, "Do you know, Sir, who I am?" "No, Sir, (said the other,) I have not that advantage." "Sir, (said he,) I am the great TWALMLEY, who invented the New Floodgate Iron1."'I have met many descendants of the great Twalmley.
1What the great Twalmley was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.
