41709001@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Dear Sirs: Let me begin by clearing up any possible misconception in your minds, wherever you are.@@@@1@17@@oe@1-12-2014
41709002@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The collective by which I address you in the title above is neither patronizing nor jocose but an exact industrial term in use among professional thieves.@@@@1@26@@oe@1-12-2014
41709003@unknown@formal@none@1@S@It is, I am reliably given to understand, the technical argot for those who engage in your particular branch of the boost; i.e., burglars who rob while the tenants are absent, in contrast to hot-slough prowlers, those who work while the occupants are home.@@@@1@44@@oe@1-12-2014
41709004@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Since the latter obviously require an audacity you do not possess, you may perhaps suppose that I am taunting you as socially inferior.@@@@1@23@@oe@1-12-2014
41709005@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Far from it; I merely draw an etymological distinction, hoping that specialists and busy people like you will welcome such precision in a layman.@@@@1@24@@oe@1-12-2014
41709006@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Above all, disabuse yourselves of any thought that I propose to vent moral indignation at your rifling my residence, to whimper over the loss of a few objets d'art, or to shame you into rectitude.@@@@1@35@@oe@1-12-2014
41709007@unknown@formal@none@1@S@My object, rather, is to alert you to an aspect or two of the affair that could have the gravest implications for you, far beyond the legal sanctions society might inflict.@@@@1@31@@oe@1-12-2014
41709008@unknown@formal@none@1@S@You have unwittingly set in motion forces so malign, so vindictive, that it would be downright inhumane of me not to warn you about them.@@@@1@25@@oe@1-12-2014
41709009@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Quite candidly, fellows, I wouldn't be in your shoes for all the rice in China.@@@@1@15@@oe@1-12-2014
41709010@unknown@formal@none@1@S@As you've doubtless forgotten the circumstances in the press of more recent depredations, permit me to recapitulate them briefly.@@@@1@19@@oe@1-12-2014
41709011@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Sometime on Saturday evening, August 22nd, while my family and I were dining at the Hostaria dell' Orso, in Rome, you jimmied a window of our home in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and let yourselves into the premises.@@@@1@37@@oe@1-12-2014
41709012@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Hastening to the attic, the temperature of which was easily hotter than the Gold Coast, you proceeded to mask the windows with a fancy wool coverlet, some khaki pants, and the like, and to ransack the innumerable boxes and barrels stored there.@@@@1@42@@oe@1-12-2014
41709013@unknown@formal@none@1@S@What you were looking for (unless you make a hobby of collecting old tennis rackets and fly screens) eludes me, but to judge from phonograph records scattered about a fumed-oak Victrola. You danced two tangos and a paso doble, which must have been fairly enervating in that milieu.@@@@1@48@@oe@1-12-2014
41709014@unknown@formal@none@1@S@You then descended one story, glommed a television set from the music room -- the only constructive feature of your visit, by the way -- and, returning to the ground floor, entered the master bedroom.@@@@1@35@@oe@1-12-2014
41709015@unknown@formal@none@1@S@From the curio cabinet on its south wall and the bureaus beneath, you abstracted seventeen ivory, metal, wood, and stone sculptures of Oriental and African origin, two snuffboxes, and a jade-handled magnifying glass.@@@@1@33@@oe@1-12-2014
41709016@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Rummaging through a stack of drawers nearby, you unearthed an antique French chess set in ivory and sandalwood, which, along with two box Kodaks, you added to your haul.@@@@1@29@@oe@1-12-2014
41709017@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Then, having wrapped the lot in an afghan my dog customarily slept on, you lammed out the front door, considerately leaving it open for neighbors to discover.@@@@1@27@@oe@1-12-2014
41709018@unknown@formal@none@1@S@So much for the tiresome facts, as familiar to you, I'm sure, as to the constables and state troopers who followed in your wake.@@@@1@24@@oe@1-12-2014
41709019@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The foregoing, aided by several clues I'll withhold to keep you on your toes, will pursue you with a tenacity worthy of Inspector Javert, but before they close in, gird yourselves, I repeat, for a vengeance infinitely more pitiless.@@@@1@39@@oe@1-12-2014
41709020@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Fourteen of the sculptures you took possess properties of a most curious and terrifying nature, as you will observe when your limbs begin to wither and your hair falls out in patches.@@@@1@32@@oe@1-12-2014
41709021@unknown@formal@none@1@S@In time, these minor manifestations will multiply and effloresce, riddling you with frambesia, the king's evil, sheep rot, and clonic spasm, until your very existence becomes a burden and you cry out for release.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709022@unknown@formal@none@1@S@All this, though, is simply a prelude, a curtain-raiser, for what ensues, and I doubt whether any Occidental could accurately forecast it.@@@@1@22@@oe@1-12-2014
41709023@unknown@formal@none@1@S@If, however, it would help to intensify your anguish, I can delimit the powers of a few of the divinities you've affronted and describe the punishment they meted out in one analogous instance.@@@@1@33@@oe@1-12-2014
41709024@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Hold on tight.@@@@1@3@@oe@1-12-2014
41709025@unknown@formal@none@1@S@First of all, the six figures of the Buddha you heisted -- four Siamese heads, a black obsidian statuette in the earth-touching position, and a large brass figure of the Dying Buddha on a teakwood base.@@@@1@36@@oe@1-12-2014
41709026@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Now, you probably share the widespread Western belief that the Lord Buddha is the most compassionate of the gods, much more so than Jehovah and Allah and the rest.@@@@1@29@@oe@1-12-2014
41709027@unknown@formal@none@1@S@'fess up -- don't you?@@@@1@5@@oe@1-12-2014
41709028@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Well, ordinarily he is, except (as the Wheel of the Law specifies) toward impious folk who steal, disturb, or maltreat the Presence.@@@@1@22@@oe@1-12-2014
41709029@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Very peculiar retribution indeed seems to overtake such jokers.@@@@1@9@@oe@1-12-2014
41709030@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Eight or ten years ago, a couple of French hoods stole a priceless Khmer head from the Musee Guimet, in Paris, and a week later crawled into the Salpetriere with unmistakable symptoms of leprosy.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709031@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Hell's own amount of chaulmoogra oil did nothing to alleviate their torment; they expired amid indescribable fantods, imploring the Blessed One to forgive their desecration.@@@@1@25@@oe@1-12-2014
41709032@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Any reputable French interne can supply you with a dozen similar instances, and I'll presently recount a case out of my own personal experience, but, for the moment, let's resume our catalogue.@@@@1@32@@oe@1-12-2014
41709033@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Whether the pair of Sudanese ivory carvings you lifted really possess the juju to turn your livers to lead, as a dealer in Khartoum assured me, I am not competent to say.@@@@1@32@@oe@1-12-2014
41709034@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Likewise the ivory Chinese female figure known as a "doctor lady" (provenance Honan); a friend of mine removing her from the curio cabinet for inspection was felled as if by a hammer, but he had previously drunk a quantity of applejack.@@@@1@41@@oe@1-12-2014
41709035@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The three Indian brass deities, though -- Ganessa, Siva, and Krishna -- are an altogether different cup of tea.@@@@1@19@@oe@1-12-2014
41709036@unknown@formal@none@1@S@They hail from Travancore, a state in the subcontinent where Kali, the goddess of death, is worshiped.@@@@1@17@@oe@1-12-2014
41709037@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Have you ever heard of Thuggee?@@@@1@6@@oe@1-12-2014
41709038@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Nuf sed.@@@@1@2@@oe@1-12-2014
41709039@unknown@formal@none@1@S@But it is the wooden sculpture from Bali, the one representing two men with their heads bent backward and their bodies interlaced by a fish, that I particularly call to your attention.@@@@1@32@@oe@1-12-2014
41709040@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Oddly enough, this is an amulet against housebreakers, presented to the mem and me by a local rajah in 1949.@@@@1@20@@oe@1-12-2014
41709041@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Inscribed around its base is a charm in Balinese, a dialect I take it you don't comprehend.@@@@1@17@@oe@1-12-2014
41709042@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Neither do I, but the Tjokorda Agoeng was good enough to translate, and I'll do as much for you.@@@@1@19@@oe@1-12-2014
41709043@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Whosoever violates our rooftree, the legend states, can expect maximal sorrow.@@@@1@11@@oe@1-12-2014
41709044@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The teeth will rain from his mouth like pebbles, his wife will make him cocu with fishmongers, and a trolley car will grow in his stomach.@@@@1@26@@oe@1-12-2014
41709045@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Furthermore -- and this, to me, strikes an especially warming note -- it shall avail the vandals naught to throw away or dispose of their loot.@@@@1@26@@oe@1-12-2014
41709046@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The cycle of disaster starts the moment they touch any belonging of ours, and dogs them unto the forty-fifth generation.@@@@1@20@@oe@1-12-2014
41709047@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Sort of remorseless, isn't it?@@@@1@5@@oe@1-12-2014
41709048@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Still, there it is.@@@@1@4@@oe@1-12-2014
41709049@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Now, you no doubt regard the preceding as pap; you're tooling around full of gage in your hot rods, gorging yourselves on pizza and playing pinball in the taverns and generally behaving like Ubermenschen.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709050@unknown@formal@none@1@S@In that case, listen to what befell another wisenheimer who tangled with our joss.@@@@1@14@@oe@1-12-2014
41709051@unknown@formal@none@1@S@A couple of years back, I occupied a Village apartment whose outer staircase contained the type of niche called a "coffin turn".@@@@1@22@@oe@1-12-2014
41709052@unknown@formal@none@1@S@In it was a stone Tibetan Buddha I had picked up in Bombay, and occasionally, to make merit, my wife and I garlanded it with flowers or laid a few pennies in its lap.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709053@unknown@formal@none@1@S@After a while, we became aware that the money was disappearing as fast as we replenished it.@@@@1@17@@oe@1-12-2014
41709054@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Our suspicions eventually centered, by the process of elimination, on a grocer's boy, a thoroughly bad hat, who delivered cartons to the people overhead.@@@@1@24@@oe@1-12-2014
41709055@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The more I probed into this young man's activities and character, the less savory I found him.@@@@1@17@@oe@1-12-2014
41709056@unknown@formal@none@1@S@I learned, for example, that he made a practice of yapping at dogs he encountered and, in winter, of sprinkling salt on the icy pavement to scarify their feet.@@@@1@29@@oe@1-12-2014
41709057@unknown@formal@none@1@S@His energy was prodigious; sometimes he would be up before dawn, clad as a garbage collector and hurling pails into areaways to exasperate us, and thereafter would hurry to the Bronx Zoo to grimace at the lions and press cigar butts against their paws.@@@@1@44@@oe@1-12-2014
41709058@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Evenings, he was frequently to be seen at restaurants like Enrico & Paglieri's or Peter's Backyard drunkenly donning ladies' hats and singing "O Sole Mio".@@@@1@25@@oe@1-12-2014
41709059@unknown@formal@none@1@S@In short, and to borrow an arboreal phrase, slash timber.@@@@1@10@@oe@1-12-2014
41709060@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Well, the odious little toad went along chivying animals and humans who couldn't retaliate, and in due course, as was inevitable, overreached himself.@@@@1@23@@oe@1-12-2014
41709061@unknown@formal@none@1@S@One morning, we discovered not only that the pennies were missing from the idol but that a cigarette had been stubbed out in its lap.@@@@1@25@@oe@1-12-2014
41709062@unknown@formal@none@1@S@"Now he's bought it", said my wife contentedly.@@@@1@8@@oe@1-12-2014
41709063@unknown@formal@none@1@S@"No divinity will hold still for that.@@@@1@7@@oe@1-12-2014
41709064@unknown@formal@none@1@S@He's really asking for it".@@@@1@5@@oe@1-12-2014
41709065@unknown@formal@none@1@S@And how right she was.@@@@1@5@@oe@1-12-2014
41709066@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The next time we saw him, he was a changed person; he had aged thirty years, and his face, the color of tallow, was crisscrossed with wrinkles, as though it had been wrapped in chicken wire.@@@@1@36@@oe@1-12-2014
41709067@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Some sort of nemesis was haunting his footsteps, he told us in a quavering voice -- either an ape specter or Abe Spector, a process-server, we couldn't determine which.@@@@1@29@@oe@1-12-2014
41709068@unknown@formal@none@1@S@His eyes had the same dreadful rigid stare as Dr. Grimesby Roylott's when he was found before his open safe wearing the speckled band.@@@@1@24@@oe@1-12-2014
41709069@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The grocery the youth worked for soon tired of his depressing effect on customers, most of whom were sufficiently neurotic without the threat of incubi, and let him go.@@@@1@29@@oe@1-12-2014
41709070@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The beautiful, the satisfying part of his disintegration, however, was the masterly way the Buddha polished him off.@@@@1@18@@oe@1-12-2014
41709071@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Reduced to beggary, he at last got a job as office boy to a television producer.@@@@1@16@@oe@1-12-2014
41709072@unknown@formal@none@1@S@His hubris, deficiency of taste, and sadism carried him straightaway to the top.@@@@1@13@@oe@1-12-2014
41709073@unknown@formal@none@1@S@He evolved programs that plumbed new depths of bathos and besmirched whole networks, and quickly superseded his boss.@@@@1@18@@oe@1-12-2014
41709074@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Not long ago, I rode down with him in an elevator in Radio City; he was talking to himself thirteen to the dozen and smoking two cigars at once, clearly a man in extremis.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709075@unknown@formal@none@1@S@"See that guy"? The operator asked pityingly.@@@@1@7@@oe@1-12-2014
41709076@unknown@formal@none@1@S@"I wouldn't be in his shoes for all the rice in China.@@@@1@12@@oe@1-12-2014
41709077@unknown@formal@none@1@S@There's some kind of a nemesis haunting his footsteps".@@@@1@9@@oe@1-12-2014
41709078@unknown@formal@none@1@S@However one looks at it, therefore, I'd say that your horoscope for this autumn is the reverse of rosy.@@@@1@19@@oe@1-12-2014
41709079@unknown@formal@none@1@S@The inventory you acquired from me isn't going to be easy to move; you can't very well sidle up to people on the street and ask if they want to buy a hot Bodhisattva.@@@@1@34@@oe@1-12-2014
41709080@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Additionally, since you're going to be hors de combat pretty soon with sprue, yaws, Delhi boil, the Granville wilt, liver fluke, bilharziasis, and a host of other complications of the hex you've aroused, you mustn't expect to be lionized socially.@@@@1@40@@oe@1-12-2014
41709081@unknown@formal@none@1@S@My advice, if you live long enough to continue your vocation, is that the next time you're attracted by the exotic, pass it up -- it's nothing but a headache.@@@@1@30@@oe@1-12-2014
41709082@unknown@formal@none@1@S@As you can count on me to do the same.@@@@1@10@@oe@1-12-2014
41709083@unknown@formal@none@1@S@Compassionately yours, S. J. Perelman@@@@1@5@@oe@1-12-2014
41709084@unknown@formal@none@1@S@revulsion in the desert@@@@1@4@@oe@1-12-2014
41709085@unknown@formal@none@1@S@the doors of the D train slid shut, and as I dropped into a seat and, exhaling, looked up across the aisle, the whole aviary in my head burst into song.@@@@1@31@@oe@1-12-2014
41709086@unknown@formal@none@1@S@She was a living doll and no mistake -- the blue-black bang, the wide cheekbones, olive-flushed, that betrayed the Cherokee strain in her Midwestern lineage, and the mouth whose only fault, in the novelist's carping phrase, was that the lower lip was a trifle too voluptuous.@@@@1@46@@oe@1-12-2014
41709087@unknown@formal@none@1@S@From what I was able to gauge in a swift, greedy glance, the figure inside the coral-colored boucle dress was stupefying.@@@@1@21@@oe@1-12-2014