ATD 724-747

Please keep these annotations SPOILER-FREE by not revealing information from later pages in the novel.

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Page 727

Hottentot
Part of a series of zany distortions. French attentat = coup, assassination.

Page 729

no . . . apiarian byproduct of hers
I.e., none of her beeswax (American slang for "business").

pennsilvoney
More foreign-language comedy. Italian pensione = pension (lodging with board included).

Page 731

the ancient family arms
"[A] sponge couchant on a field chequy with flames at the foot." Pynchonian mock-heraldry. Couchant refers to an animal lying down with its erect head to the viewer's left. Well, at least sponges do belong to the animal kingdom. Chequy (one correct spelling) identifies the field or background of the shield as being divided into squares like a checkerboard. At the foot is a heraldic solecism; in base is preferable.

Taking two colors at random, say gules (red) and argent (silver or white), we could blazon the arms as "Chequy argent and gules, a sponge proper couchant above flames of fire of the third in base." Of course when the arms are carved in stone you can't see the colors. Proper means "in the color of the natural object," so . . . sponge-colored for the sponge, red and yellow for the flames.

Heraldists refer to "canting arms" when the charges on the shield pun on the bearer's name, as in this case: The flames are toasting the sponge.

Page 733

areeferdirtcheap
Reef getting his Italian wrong again: arrivederci, goodbye.

Page 736

forty mule
A Reefian parting shot: French faute de mieux, meaning "for lack of anything better."

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