Mark the whinkling landlady, showing the third floor front to the prospective lodger. “You’ll find it a very comfortable home here; everyone has always been happy here—very! Nice and sunny ... plenty of towels ... closet ... nice, soft bed—no bugs in my house. Lovely bureau, plenty of room for all your things. I am sure you couldn’t do better.”
How whinkles the pallid clerk at his employer’s jokes.
When first my motor-car I bought,
The salesman wagged his tail—
He whinkled till I almost thought
He’d kiss me, for the sale.
But when the poppet-valves were strained,
And had to be repaired—
No whinkling then, when I complained;—
The salesman merely glared!
Wij´ji-cle, n. A perverse or contradictory article of furniture; any household contrivance that is always out of order.
“You’ll find no wijjicles in this house,” said the agent as he unlocked the front door. “It’s in perfect order.” And yet, before I had left I had found:
Eight window-screens that wouldn’t go up or down; loose boards in the dining-room and three on the stairs that squeaked; a leak in the roof, a smoky fireplace, three cupboard doors that wouldn’t shut, four closet doors that would swing open, and a long, phlegmatic bath-tub that it took three-quarters of an hour to fill, through its reluctant faucet. (See Quisty.)
But I must confess I brought in my own wijjicles, too. Reader, you know them well—
The folding camp-chairs that can’t be unfolded, the three-legged tables that tip over, the rocking-chairs that bite you on the shins in the dark and patent spring-rockers that squeak; the unoiled door, the mirrors with wavy glass, the bureau drawers that stick and the step-ladders that won’t stay open; the baby-carriages that are always in the way; plush furniture that sticks, and painted chairs that come off on your back; screen doors that bang, and rugs on slippery floors, the table that balances unsteadily.
But the worst of all, is the pencil with its lead broken far up inside the wood. (See Moosoo.)