***

[Anthropomorphized Grandfather Clock dept.]

All was silent inside, save for the heavy ticking of the grandfather clock in the hall. This wheezily worked itself up for an effort, struck eight and sank into exhausted quietness once more.

***

[We liked this joke in the last book, so Mr Bellairs is giving it to us again.]

"Hey, grandpa, ye'll be meetin' yerself comin' back if ye bustle like that," shouted one of the idlers.

***

"Maybe it'll turn out to be suicide, after all," said a meek man, baring his yellow teeth in a smile and patting his bald pate as though either blessing himself or stimulating his brains to activity.

***

She was a little, thin woman, with ... a nose and mouth so small that a caricaturist would have passed them off with a tick and a dot of his pencil.