{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6727", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 6727, "subject": "Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "messages": 6, "voices": 2, "first": "2015-04-22T15:26:08+00:00", "last": "2015-04-23T16:23:08+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Marc Aramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-22T15:26:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "THE VAMPIRE KISS\n\n“The Vampire Kiss” first appeared in the April 2005 edition of *Realms of\nFantasy* and has never been collected.\n\nSUMMARY\n\nThe story is narrated by Mr. Fagin, one of the villains of Charles\nDickens? *Oliver\nTwist.* He begins by speaking of “his” boys, found on the street or sent to\nhim by others (of course, he uses them to steal goods and pickpocket,\nkeeping the proceeds or reselling them). Rejoicing in their lack of\neducation, he also praises those who were “someone’s darling child not so\nlong ago” because they can clean up after themselves and speak properly. As\nhe is frying sausages one night, one of his boys, Tommy, comes up and says,\n“It reminds me of a way they said I might kill her, though I never did,\neven when I found her grave” (referring to the cooking fire, though for a\nmoment Fagin considers the sausage as a method of execution). The rest of\nthe story is told primarily from Tommy’s point of view.\n\nTommy describes how his impoverished family lodged near the Green in London\nabove a shop which sold a huge assortment of odds and ends: pistols,\nwatches, rings, games, and even “a set of false teeth — that came and went\nlike a ghost.” Tommy would stare at a walking stick filled with candy in\nthe hopes the elderly proprietor would share, but the best he could hope\nfor was a bun or tea. His father seemed near death, but still fought for\nlife, being too sick to work. His mother sold tea in another woman's shop:\n“The other woman paid her, and gave her a little tea, too, every day. Loose\ntea, you know, that she'd put in her pocket and bring home.” Both become\nsick.\n\nThe elderly woman they were renting from had some mercy, giving them some\nfood and telling them, “a ghost was drinking Mother's blood, and Father's\ntoo.” She advises them to get crosses and puts garlic around the father's\nneck. Tommy makes a cross out of two stick and puts it over the bed, and\nuses scissors to make one, hiding it underneath the bed. He goes out to\nlook in the cemeteries to see if he can find the root of the problem.\n\nOne October or November night (probably Halloween) he is awoken, and hears\nthe bells of St. James' steeple chiming midnight, and as he thinks of going\nto the fire lit by the “unwanted” coal he finds dropped in the streets, he\nsees a beautiful, hungry apparition wearing a bonnet with black ribbons and\na large stiff crinoline skirt. He returns to bed and pretends to sleep,\nnoticing that as she leaves she no longer appears hungry.\n\nHis father soon dies and they sell the furniture to bury him. Tommy\ncontinues to beg for food at the neighbors, and admits, “I'd like to say\nnow that I brought it back to Mother and we ate it together, but it\nwouldn't be true. I ate there — and sometimes I ate it all,” though at\ntimes he brings her back food as well.\n\nAs he is trying to get another boy to teach him to steal apples without\ngetting caught, the boy George Peters tells him that a beautiful lady who\nlived in his house had poisoned herself years ago, and others insisted that\nher husband had killed her and the body was never found, though he was\nhanged for it, and that she might be buried in the cellar.\n\nHe goes down to the cellar with a stub of candle, and though he finds\nnothing, at night he realizes that he had intended to look behind a box\ndown there and somehow forgotten about it before he did. He lights his\ncandle from the fire and descends, noting “It was different at night —\nBigger somehow, and the air was different.” He finds nothing behind the\nbox, but when he turns around, he sees a deep grave in the middle of the\ncellar floor which he couldn't possibly have missed before. “I suppose I\nwent over to look in, though I have never remembered going there.” He\nstares at her until she opens her eyes, admitting he should have staked\nher: “I'm shamed now; shamed to own myself a coward; but I slept with my\nmother that night and trembled at every little sound.” In the morning, he\nresolves to find a stake and mallet after getting food, but when he returns\nwith crusts for his mother, she is already dead.\n\nAfter the beadle is informed and her grave finally dug, he eats the crusts\nof bread he had intended to leave with his mother in the grave. By the time\nhe returns, it is dark, and as the boys ask him whether he had touched his\nmother's body or not, then the woman he had seen in the night appears. She\nnotes him and bends down to give him a kiss, saying, “Poor, poor child.”\n\nHe notes that the other boys are envious of him, and he feels “proud and\nbad at the same time”. Soon a boy comments, “She ain't a dab beauty is she”\nOh, no! Not a bit of it, and the other boys pick up commenting in this\nspirit. One notes that the woman “Had a spot o' tallow on her bodice\nthough. Candle dripped, I reckon.” Tommy is overcome with a need to get\naway from the Greens, expressing disbelief at their talk.\n\nTommy finishes his story and Fagin gives him a sausage in the hope of\npersuading him to elaborate further, but Tommy merely thanks Fagin and\nleaves to rejoin Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger.\n\nFagin concludes, “He has been taken now, poor Tommy has, and transported as\nwe hear. His tale has remained with me, however; thus I set it down.”\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\n“The Vampire Kiss” seems to be a straightforward tale for Wolfe, employing\nthe dominant theme that external glamor and even poor social conditions are\noften parasitic in nature, though those trapped inside those conditions are\noften easily dissuaded from the proper focus for their ire and\ndissatisfaction. The vampiric woman, if the tales on the street are to be\ngiven credence, was probably poisoned in her life, and she feeds off of a\nfamily in turn. The mother takes tea from her employer, probably hiding it\nin her pockets without the owner's knowledge, despite Tommy's claims of the\nemployer's generosity. Tommy himself eats most of the food he scavenges\nbefore he returns it to his family. Fagin is famous for this kind of\nparasitism, but in Dickens he is in turn condemned to death for essentially\nearning a dishonest living. His culpability is in letting others, primarily\nchildren, take the risk for him and facing execution as well. The entire\nsocietal structure is based off of this scavenging — no real redress or\njustice seems conceivable in Wolfe's story, for Tommy is actually proud of\nthe fake sympathetic kiss he gets from the being who fed off his family,\nrather than blaming her for his condition. He becomes angered when they\nbegin to speak of the woman in common fashion, but never seems to blame her\nfor the death of his parents (it even seems at times that his mother had\nbecome just another mouth to feed to him). Even when Tommy resolves to get\na stake to defend them, first he must scrounge for food, and when he\nreturns with his crusts of bread it is too late; he intends to throw them\nin his mother's grave, but winds up eating them. In addition, it seems that\nthe vampire's beauty prevents the boy from staking her, showing the allure\nof food and the hope of some sexual attraction as something stronger than\nthe urgency of family ties.\nThe underlying social structure is one in which the denial of necessary\nfood and resources creates a kind of condescending parasitism which seems\nentirely circular and self-justified — Tommy freely takes and selfishly\nconsumes, and is proud of the small token of social status that a kiss\nwhich killed his parents and left him bereft gives him. It leaves him to be\ntaken advantage of by another parasite in Fagin, though one in a superior\nposition who masks his reality behind structure and kindness (and even\nthrows his boy a sausage rather than tea or a bun, though in the end Tommy\nwill be exiled to Australia).\n\nLITERARY ALLUSIONS:\n\n\nWolfe has a well-documented fondness for Charles Dickens, and much like\n“Our Neighbor by David Copperfield” and “The Doctor of Death Island”, this\nstory directly employs characters from the 19th century English novelist.\nWhile generally considered a realistic and at times social novelist,\nDickens was not averse to portraying supernatural situations. In both\nWolfe’s story and in *Oliver Twist,* the importance of food as a basic\nnecessity and the illusory nature of kindness in society are depicted.\nFagin and his boys represent the first kindness that Oliver Twist\nencounters after the scarce conditions of his youth, but it is an\nartificial one based on exploitation and appearance. In Wolfe’s story,\nTommy is at times given tea and food by an elderly couple and later even\nprotected by Fagin, but this social stewardship is just another form of\nparasitism. The glowing pride Tommy feels at the beautiful female vampire\nkissing him is just another triumph for appearance over reality — buying\ninto a destructive and seductive glamor for the social approval it garners.\nYet when the mystery is spoiled by the talk of boys, he wants an escape. It\nis possible that his story has been designed to get Fagin's sausage, for\nonce he attains it, he refuses to speak more on the subject.\n\nOne of the features of Dickens in general that can be detected in *Oliver\nTwist*, which Wolfe has also employed here, is the metaphor of those who\neat and those who are eaten. The emphasis on sausages, tea, and food and\nthe manner in which even families often selfishly distribute these life\nsustaining items throughout Wolfe’s story directly parallels the dire\nsituation at the start of *Oliver Twist*, which emphasizes the failure of\ncharity. The underlying assumption, that poverty was a disease born of\nlaziness, led Dickens to portray the charity workers themselves as the\npicture of lazy ineffectuality. As the novel progresses, this is overtaken\nby a strain of false kindness exemplified by Fagin, whom Wolfe employs as\nour primary narrator. Dickens himself deployed some of the metaphors of the\nsupernatural in several of his stories, including *Bleak House*, though\nthey were often tied to a didactic or social illustration commenting upon\nsociety, and here it feels as if Wolfe is doing much the same thing.\n\nWhile Stoker's *Dracula *shows vampirism as a disease, some earlier gothic\nnovels tended to treat vampirism as a separation and seeking for God and\npeace or as a literal rendition of the conflict between heathen passion and\nChristian self-control. The vampire woman in Wolfe's story is not the\nmonstrous shambling corpse of some Eastern European tradition, but one of\nglamor and beauty.\n\nSETTING AND THE COCK LANE GHOST:\n\nTommy says that his family lodged “near the Green” in London, and this\nappears to be modern day Clerkenwell Green. (A modern pub of the name “The\nGreen” is located, right around the corner from St. James' Church Garden,\nthe bells of which can be heard in the story.) Clerkenwell Green is also\nwhere Dickens situates Fagin and his boys. One of the myths prevalent in\nthe region is that of the “Cock Lane Ghost”, which Dickens actually alludes\nto in *Nicholas Nickleby*, *A Tale of Two Cities*, and *Dombey and Son*.\nThis story, while historical, is a based on a real deception. The story\noccurred a short distance from St. Paul's Cathedral in the mid 18th\ncentury. After the death of the money lender William Kent's wife in\nchildbirth, he became involved with her sister, Fanny, who later died of\nsmall pox. At their property, knocking and ghostly apparitions were\nreported. A parish clerk named Richard Parsons owed Kent money, and Parson\nclaimed that the ghost of Fanny was haunting him, and that the ghost\nclaimed Kent poisoned Fanny with arsenic. Later it was revealed that\nParson's daughter Elizabeth was responsible for the strange events which\nsimulated a haunting, put up to it by her father either in revenge or to\navoid paying back his debt. (Chambers).\n\nThis only has superficial resemblance to the situation in Wolfe's story:\n“George Peters said there had been a lady in our house who had killed\nherself already, years and years ago. Poisoned herself, he said, but some\nof the others said no, it was her husband who murdered her, and her body\nwas never found. Only they hanged him for it anyway is what they said. Then\nanother said he had buried her in the cellar, and they found her there, and\nthat was why they hanged him.” The rumors of poison and a supernatural\nexistence after a possibly obscured murder are similar, but the fates of\nthe husband in the boy's talk and William Kent are obviously very\ndifferent, as Kent was exonerated.\n\nBesides this ghost story, Clerkenwell was famous for watchmaking and had a\nhigh percentage of Italian immigrants, and Wolfe's description of the shop\naccounts for this: ?Watches, sir, and rings such as you have here, silver\nteapots, too, and games with the kings and queens and castles and things\nall carved of ivory.' Perhaps the foreign shop owners are Italian, though\nthe tradition of staking a vampire is commonly Slavic. The crinoline skirt\nthe woman wears would have been somewhat contemporary, with the fabric\nappearing in the 1830s and the actual structured skirt being commonly\nreferred to by that name by the 1850s (*Oliver Twist* was published from\n1837-1839 in serial form).\n\nDespite the echoes of the Cock Lane Ghost, which turned out to be a grand\ndeception, there does not seem to be enough external evidence to doubt\nTommy's story as a deception save that Tommy refuses to expand upon the\nstory once he has achieved a sausage (before going outside to rejoin Jack\nDawkins, the Artful Dodger — another prominent character in *Oliver Twist*\nwho is quite proficient at pick pocketing and deception, usually acting as\na man even though he is still but a boy)).\n\nRELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE:\n\nWhile there may or may not be an explicit reference to the Cock Lane Ghost,\nat the time that infamous story, which was referenced by Dickens, sparked a\nreligious controversy between Methodists and Anglicans. Methodists saw\nsupernatural events as confirmation of an afterlife, and some Anglicans saw\nthis as a primitive left over of England's Catholic past. While Wolfe can\nalmost always be trusted to espouse a dualistic world view in which death\nis not necessarily the end, this particular afterlife story has very little\nof redemption in it — it is simply a continuation of the cycle of preying\nupon others which existed during life, and it seems that the woman, Fagin,\nand Tommy himself are all to some degree guilty. The crosses which Tommy\nconstructs are completely useless, as is the garlic. If there is any\nredemption in this story, it seems to have little to do with the bells of\nSt. James — nor is deliverance to be found at the fond recollection of the\nthe Jewish Mr. Fagin.\n\nAt least in this story, hunger seems to be an obstacle to happiness, faith,\nand salvation, and the search for necessary food, whether this be crusts of\nbread or the blood of the innocent, creates a vacuum which only superficial\nthings can begin to fill. The boys admit that she is attractive, and this\ntalk for some reason upsets Tommy. Perhaps he realizes then that it is her\nbeauty which kept him from acting and cost him his mother, letting all\nmanner of unfulfilled hungers supersede the faculties which would have\npreserved his family.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nWhen Bob Perkins says, “She ain't a dab beauty is she” Oh, no! Not a bit of\nit, it seems to be an ironic statement such as, “Isn't she a beauty?”\nthough he is quite literally saying: “She isn't a striking beauty. No.”\nWhen the other boys pick up this talk in the same vein, the narrator can't\nbelieve it and “wanted to be gone from the Green that moment.” Is he\nangered by the base way they are talking about her? Quite clearly they are\nimpressed by her beauty and the statement is intended to be ironic. Why\ndoes this anger him so?\n\nIs the Tommy of this story the older boy just released from prison, Tommy\nChitling, from *Oliver Twist*? Since Fagin is executed at the culmination\nof Dicken's novel and Tommy Chitling has been released from a recent stay\nin prison, it does not seem that they could be the same boy (Wolfe's\nsecondary narrator is transported to Australia as was the custom for some\ncriminals in England at the time). During some of the banter in *Oliver\nTwist*, Tommy Chitling is mocked for his supposed devotion to a woman, but\notherwise there is little reason to assume that they are the same character.\n\nIs there any significance to having the villainous Fagin and one of his\nboys serve as the narrators? Dickens descends into Fagin's point of view at\nsome length right before his execution, but is the story just a means for\nTommy to get Fagin's sausage? After all, it is the sausage which reminds\nhim of the manner in which he was supposed to kill the supernatural force —\nfire. The need for food and sustenance and its corrupting influence seems\nto be a major theme of both Dicken's social commentary and Wolfe's story,\ngiven the attention paid to the distribution of food and the rather weak\ntea that serves as a substitute for true nourishment. In addition, Fagin's\nlies at the end of *Oliver Twist* are responsible for the death of the\nprostitute Nancy, who does not actually betray the man who kills her, even\nthough Oliver tells him that she does. Why have the selfish, manipulative\nFagin be the primary narrator?\n\nWhy do the false teeth disappear in the shop? Is there any symbolic\nrelationship to the vampire and her actual existence?\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS\n\nWolfe loves Charles Dickens' allusions, spanning from “Our Neighbor by\nDavid Copperfield” to “The Doctor of Death Island”. Despite the double\nnarrative presented from a rather infamous thief and abuser of children,\nthe story still seems pretty straightforward in its riff on the\nsupernatural and folk stories. Wolfe's interest in horror grew throughout\nthe 1990s and 2000s, and there are some motifs (like the young woman doomed\nto the grave) that are also present in “My Name is Nancy Wood” and some of\nhis other horror offerings.\n\nRESOURCES\n\nChambers, Paul. *The Cock Lane Ghost: Murder, Sex and Haunting in Dr\nJohnson's London.* Stroud: Sutton, 2006.\n\nDickens, Charles. *Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy's Progress*.\nGutenberg.org. 10 Oct 2008. Web. 14 April 2015.\nhttp://www.gutenberg.org/files/730/730-h/730-h.htm" } ] }, { "message_id": "<5538A822.6040105@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2015-04-23T08:06:58+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/22/2015 10:26 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nIs the Tommy of this story the older boy just released from prison,\nTommy Chitling, from /Oliver Twist/? Since Fagin is executed at the\nculmination of Dicken's novel and Tommy Chitling has been released from\na recent stay in prison, it does not seem that they could be the same\nboy (Wolfe's secondary narrator is transported to Australia as was the\ncustom for some criminals in England at the time)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think there is an obvious alternate interpretation; Tommy disappears \nand rumor and hearsay fill the gap with him being taken and transported, \nwhen he was instead \"taken\" by the woman from the cellar." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<9xyb9bv9r9q12ty8hkv5597j.1429793348245@email.android.com>", "from": { "name": "marcaramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-23T12:49:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": "<5538A822.6040105@clueland.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI guess that would depend on whether Fagin saw a trial or heard of an arrest, “but, yes, \"transported\" is pretty ambiguous language. ?Dickens makes such a big deal about the trial and execution of Fagin ... would Fagin simply assume tommy is transported rather than executed or incarcerated if he simply disappears?”\n\n\nSent via the Samsung Galaxy Alpha?, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone\n\n-------- Original message --------\nFrom: \"Jeffery Wilson clueland.com\" \nDate: 04/23/2015 1:06 AM (GMT-07:00) \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/22/2015 10:26 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nIs the Tommy of this story the older boy just released from prison,\nTommy Chitling, from /Oliver Twist/? Since Fagin is executed at the\nculmination of Dicken's novel and Tommy Chitling has been released from\na recent stay in prison, it does not seem that they could be the same\nboy (Wolfe's secondary narrator is transported to Australia as was the\ncustom for some criminals in England at the time)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think there is an obvious alternate interpretation; Tommy disappears \nand rumor and hearsay fill the gap with him being taken and transported, \nwhen he was instead \"taken\" by the woman from the cellar." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "marcaramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-23T13:48:17+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": "<9xyb9bv9r9q12ty8hkv5597j.1429793348245@email.android.com>", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI guess the question in determining that remains, is the theme that society and justice are more monstrous than a monster ...With the Dickens characters, I assume that must be in there somewhere.\n\nSent via the Samsung Galaxy Alpha?, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone\n\n-------- Original message --------\nFrom: \"Jeffery Wilson clueland.com\" \nDate: 04/23/2015 1:06 AM (GMT-07:00) \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/22/2015 10:26 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nIs the Tommy of this story the older boy just released from prison,\nTommy Chitling, from /Oliver Twist/? Since Fagin is executed at the\nculmination of Dicken's novel and Tommy Chitling has been released from\na recent stay in prison, it does not seem that they could be the same\nboy (Wolfe's secondary narrator is transported to Australia as was the\ncustom for some criminals in England at the time)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think there is an obvious alternate interpretation; Tommy disappears \nand rumor and hearsay fill the gap with him being taken and transported, \nwhen he was instead \"taken\" by the woman from the cellar." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "marcaramini", "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com" }, "date": "2015-04-23T13:49:03+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": " \nI.e. - a monster spares the boy, but the courts won't?\n\n\nSent via the Samsung Galaxy Alpha?, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone\n\n-------- Original message --------\nFrom: \"Jeffery Wilson clueland.com\" \nDate: 04/23/2015 1:06 AM (GMT-07:00) \nTo: The Urth Mailing List \nSubject: Re: (urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss " }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/22/2015 10:26 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:\nIs the Tommy of this story the older boy just released from prison,\nTommy Chitling, from /Oliver Twist/? Since Fagin is executed at the\nculmination of Dicken's novel and Tommy Chitling has been released from\na recent stay in prison, it does not seem that they could be the same\nboy (Wolfe's secondary narrator is transported to Australia as was the\ncustom for some criminals in England at the time)." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "I think there is an obvious alternate interpretation; Tommy disappears \nand rumor and hearsay fill the gap with him being taken and transported, \nwhen he was instead \"taken\" by the woman from the cellar." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] }, { "message_id": "<55391C6C.6080106@clueland.com>", "from": { "name": "Jeffery Wilson clueland.com", "address": "jwilson at clueland.com" }, "date": "2015-04-23T16:23:08+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Short Story 194*: The Vampire Kiss", "in_reply_to": "<9xyb9bv9r9q12ty8hkv5597j.1429793348245@email.android.com>", "reply_link": "header", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "On 4/23/2015 7:49 AM, marcaramini wrote:\nI guess that would depend on whether Fagin saw a trial or heard of an\narrest, but, yes, \"transported\" is pretty ambiguous language." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "\"He has been taken now, poor Tommy has, and transported as we hear. His \ntale has remained with me, however; thus I set it down.\"\n\nAll this requires is that Tommy does not return when expected. \"as we \nhear\" is almost certainly meant to imply hearsay, so someone not \nappearing in the story speaks of Tommy's transportation with conviction \nto someone who relates it to Fagin." }, { "kind": "sig", "depth": 0, "text": "Jeff Wilson - < jwilson at clueland.com >\nA&M Texarkana Computational Intelligence Lab\n< http://www.tamut.edu/cil >" } ] } ] }