Wednesday, December 28, 2011

 

The Great Twalmley

James Boswell, Life of Johnson (anno 1783, aetat. 74):
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."'

1What the great Twalmley was so proud of having invented, was neither more nor less than a kind of box-iron for smoothing linen.
I have met many descendants of the great Twalmley.



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