Parson's Pleasure by Roald Dahl (Learn English with a Short Story)

Learn English with another short story. This time it's Parson's Pleasure by Roald Dahl, which is an intriguing tale of a dodgy antiques dealer, with a nasty twist at the end. Learn vocabulary while you enjoy a fascinating story.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello listeners, Welcome back to my podcast for learners of English. Today,
I just want to tell you another story, so just
listen and enjoy it and I'll use it to help
you learn English. So I'm going to start the story
today in this episode in just a moment, But first
let me tell you a few things about the story
to get you ready so you understand it a bit better. Okay,

(00:23):
So today's story is about an antiques dealer, A story
about an antiques dealer. An antiques dealer is a person
who buys and sells antiques. Antiques are very old objects,
especially items of furniture. So we're talking about old chairs, tables,

(00:44):
chests of draws, paintings, maybe other decorative items. Okay, buying
and selling antiques is very common and very popular in
the UK. There's quite a big market for antique furniture
in the United Kingdom. What about in your country? Is
there a big market for antiques where you come from?

(01:06):
Do people buy and sell old furniture? Can you get
rich doing that? And do you have any items of
furniture that actually might be very valuable, perhaps in your
home in the loft upstairs, or maybe at your parents
or grandparents' house or something. Have you ever thought about
that if you actually have any potentially valuable items that

(01:29):
you could find and sell, and who knows, maybe you
could become rich selling some of the things that you've
got in your home, or maybe all your possessions are worthless.
I don't know your life, but who knows, maybe that
old chair that's been in the family for decades might
actually be worth a fortune. Selling antiques can be quite

(01:50):
a profitable business, but only if you can find the
right items, buy them for a good price, and then
sell them for a big profit and miss me. If
you are an antiques dealer, this means finding objects which
are old, obviously, and the older the better, well made,

(02:10):
especially if they were made by well known designers or
furniture makers, still in good condition, and then rare, unique
or part of a famous collection. And you have to
be very lucky or perhaps very clever if you want
to find a real bargain, and that means a valuable
piece for a very good price. Okay, and dealers, and

(02:35):
that's antiques dealers, not drug dealers. Dealers will always be
on the lookout for valuable antiques that could be worth
one hundreds thousands or even millions of pounds, like, for example,
a very precious Chipendale commode, which is a fairly well

(02:55):
known antique chest of draws built by Thomas Chippendale in
the eighteenth century. This is an example of like famous,
a famous set of antiques. If you find a Chippendale commode,
that could be worth millions of pounds. Okay, a chest
of draws is like the sort of thing that you

(03:15):
would have in your home with draws in it. You
open the draws, you can keep things in it. Most
of us get our chests of draws from places like IKEA, right,
and you have to build them yourself. But if you
find a Chippendale commode, that one would have been made
by Thomas Chippendale in the eighteenth century. One of those

(03:37):
was sold for nearly four million pounds a few years ago.
So that's that's the real target if you're an antiques
dealer finding something like that. Now, the story I'm going
to read to you is about an antiques dealer who
uses a particular trick to find very valuable antiques. The

(03:59):
story has a real, really good little twist at the end,
and I think you will really enjoy it. So the
story is called Parsons Pleasure by Roald Dahl. Let me
just explain that. So a parson, that's a parson, not
a person. I think you know what a person is,
but a parson this is basically another word for a
priest or a vicar. This is a person, usually a man,

(04:23):
depending on the rules of the church. A parson normally
a man. These days it can be women can become
members of the clergy anyway. A parson is someone who
leads services in a local church. In England, so a
parson is in the Anglican church system. So similar words

(04:47):
would be a vicar, a priest, a member of the clergy,
or a clergyman a parson, right, do you know what
I'm talking about? Parsons usually wear a black jacket and
a black shirt with a white collar. It's a bit
of a cliche of rural English life if you think
of sort of images of old fashioned English life in

(05:11):
the countryside, in a town somewhere in the countryside. This
sort of images that you imagine you would see nice
country lanes, farms, old country houses and maybe a parson
on a bicycle popping round to someone's house for tea
or something like that. So this story is about a
man who isn't a parson, but he dresses like a parson. Okay,

(05:35):
he's not a parson, but he dresses like one. Now
why would someone do that? Why would someone pretend to
be a clergyman or a parson? Why would someone pretend
to be one? And what is the connection to the
antiques trade? So I'm just getting you to think about that.
It'll prepare you for the story. We'll find out in
a moment. So the story was written by Roald Dahle.

(05:57):
Obviously all the credit for the story goes to him.
Roll Dhal is one of the UK's most popular authors.
He wrote lots of books for children, but also lots
of great short stories for adults. You can find this
story in collections of his work published by Penguin, and
I highly recommend that you buy some of Roll Dhald's books.

(06:19):
They are great for learning English. They're very well written,
easy to read, clever, entertaining and full of descriptive language.
So if you're looking for things to read in English,
then I really recommend Roll Dahl's work, and I suggest
that you get a copy of this book, the one
that I've got, which is the Complete Short Stories by

(06:41):
Roll Dahl, published by Penguin. It's actually a two volume
book and it contains all of his short stories. So
that book should be available in all good bookshops. The
Complete Short Stories Volumes one and two. You'll find a
link for it in the description for this episode. The
story I'm reading today is included in volume two of

(07:03):
the Complete Short Stories, and I'm going to read a
slightly abridged version of that story. Okay, not the full story,
just an abridged version. That means it's been edited to
make it slightly shorter. So this abridged version appears actually
in an old English course book that I used to

(07:24):
use in English lessons ages ago at the start of
my teaching career. So this abridged version is in this book,
Headway Advanced by Liz and John Sows. Some of you
might have used it too, maybe to learn English or
maybe even to teach English, because I do have English
teachers watching this as well. So this is the first

(07:48):
edition of Headway Advance, published in the nineteen nineties, I
think by Oxford University Press. Now we're nearly ready to
start the story. I promise I'm going to read the
story to you twice. First, I'll read it all in
one go and you just have to try to follow
what's happening. Then i'll summarize it in my own words

(08:08):
to make sure you've understood it. I'll try to sort
of like retell the story again myself to make it
maybe a little clearer. And after that, I'll go through
the story again and I'll explain some of the vocabulary,
all right, and then i'll give my comments and stuff
as well. The time period for this the story was
first published in nineteen fifty eight, so it is slightly

(08:30):
old fashioned, but not too much money as well. Money
is mentioned a few times in the story, as the
characters discuss the price of a certain piece of furniture.
Of course, money has changed its value since the story
was written because of inflation. So just to kind of
help you understand how much money is being talked about,

(08:52):
you could multiply everything by about thirty let's say, so
one pound in nineteen fifty eight is worth about thirty
pounds now. That's around about thirty five US dollars or
thirty five euros depending on when you listen to this,
So one pound would be thirty pounds now one thousand

(09:12):
pounds in nineteen fifty nineteen fifty eight would be thirty
thousand pounds now. Twenty pounds in nineteen fifty eight would
be can you do the maths? Six hundred pounds now
and twenty thousand pounds in nineteen fifty eight in today's
money would be about six hundred thousand pounds. That's over

(09:33):
half a million. Okay, right, so let's start now. Mister
Boggis is the antique dealer's name. Okay, So just a
couple of questions to get you focused. Where is he
at the start? What is he doing, what's he looking for?
What kind of person is Boggis? And what happened nine

(09:53):
years ago? But mainly, can you follow the story and
guess what is going to happen next? Let's get started. Okay,
here we go. Mister Boggis stopped the car just short
of the summit, got out and looked around. It was perfect.
He could see for miles. Over on the right he

(10:13):
spotted a medium farmhouse. Beyond it was a larger one.
There was a house that might be a Queen Anne,
and there were two likely farms over on the left,
five places in all. Then he drove to the other
side of the hill, where he saw six more possibles,
five farms and one big Georgian house. He ruled out

(10:37):
the latter. It looked prosperous, and there was no point
in calling on the prosperous. Apart from the fact that
he was at this moment disguised as a clergyman, there
was nothing very sinister about Cyril Boggis. By trade, a
dealer in antique furniture with a shop in the King's Road, Chelsea.

(10:58):
Boggis had a chief a considerable reputation by producing unusual
items with astonishing regularity. When asked where he got them,
he would wink and murmur something about a little secret.
Boggis's little secret was a result of something that happened

(11:19):
on a Sunday afternoon nearly nine years before, while he
was driving in the country. The car had overheated, and
he'd walked to a farmhouse to ask for a jug
of water. While he was waiting for it, he glanced
through the door and spotted a large oak arm chair.

(11:40):
The back panel was decorated by an inlay of the
most delicate floral design, and the head of a duck
was carved on either arm good God, he thought, this
thing is late seventeenth century. He poked his head in further,

(12:00):
there was another one on the other side of the fireplace.
Two chairs like that must be worth at least a
thousand pounds up in London. When the woman of the
house returned, Boggis asked if she would like to sell
her chairs. They weren't for sale, she said, but just
out of curiosity. How much would he give? They bargained

(12:24):
for half an hour, and in the end, of course,
Boggis got the chairs for less than a twentieth of
their value. Returning to London in his station wagon, Boggis
had an idea. If there was good stuff in one farmhouse,
why not in others? On Sundays, why couldn't he comb

(12:46):
the countryside, the isolated places, the farm houses, the dilapidated
country mansions would be his target. But country folk are
a suspicious lot. Perhaps it would be best if he
didn't let them know he was a dealer. He could
be the telephone man, the plumber, the gas inspector. He

(13:09):
could even be a clergyman. HM Boggis ordered a large
quantity of superior cards on which the following legend was engraved.
The Reverend Cyril Winnington Boggis, president of the Society for
the Preservation of Rare Furniture in association with the Victoria

(13:31):
and Albert Museum. From now on every Sunday, he was
going to be a nice old parson, traveling around on
a labor of love for the Society, compiling an inventory
of the treasures that lay hidden in country homes. The
scheme worked, In fact, it became a lucrative business. And

(13:54):
now it was another Sunday. Boggis parked some distance from
the gates of his firm house, the Queen Anne. He
never liked his car to be seen until a deal
was made. A dear old clergyman and a large station
wagon never seemed quite right together. But there was nothing

(14:14):
of value in the house. At the next stop, no
one was home. The third, a farmhouse was back in
the fields. It looked rambling and dirty. He didn't hold
out much hope for it. Three men were standing in
the yard when they caught sight of the small, pot

(14:36):
bellied man in his black suit and parsons collar. They
stopped talking and watched him suspiciously. The farm owner was
a stumpy man with small, shifty eyes, whose name was Rummins.
The tall youth beside him was his son Bert. The
short man with broad shoulders was clawed a neighbor. And

(15:01):
what exactly might you be wanting, Rummins asked. Boggins explained
at some length the aims and ideals for the Society
for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. We don't have any,
said Rummins. You're wasting your time. Now just a minute,
sir Boggis said, raising a finger. The last man who

(15:24):
said that to me was an old farmer down in Sussex.
And when he finally let me into his house, do
you know what? I found? A dirty looking old chair
in the kitchen that turned out to be worth four
hundred pounds. I showed him how to sell it, and
he bought himself a new tractor with the money. Rummins

(15:47):
shifted uneasily on his feet. Well, he said, there's no
harm in you taking a look. He led the way
into an exceedingly filthy living room, and there it was.
Boggis saw it at once and gasped. He stood staring

(16:09):
for ten seconds at least, not daring to believe what
he saw before him. It couldn't be true. At that point,
Boggis became aware of the three men watching him intently.
They had seen him gasp and stare. In a flash.

(16:30):
Bogis staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed into it,
breathing heavily. What's the matter, Claude asked, It's nothing. He gasped,
I'll be all right. In a moment, I thought maybe
you were looking at something. Rummins said no, no, no,

(16:52):
Boggis said, it's just my heart. It happens every now
and then. I'll be all right. He must have to
to think, he told himself. Take it gently, Boggis, keep calm.
These people may be ignorant, but they are not stupid.
And if it is really true to a layman, what

(17:13):
he'd seen might not have appeared particularly impressive, covered as
it was with dirty white paint, but it was a
dealer's dream. Boggis knew that among the most coveted examples
of eighteenth century English furniture are three pieces known as
the Chippendale Commodes. A trifle unsteadily, Boggis began to move

(17:38):
around the room, examining the other furniture, one piece at
a time. Apart from the commode, it was a very
poor lot, nice oak table, he said, not old enough
to be of any interest. This chest of draws, Boggis
walked casually past the comode, worth a few pounds. I

(18:01):
dare say a crude reproduction. I'm afraid that's a strong
bit of furniture, Rummins said. Some nice carving on it, too,
machine carved, Boggis replied, bending down to examine the exquisite craftsmanship,

(18:21):
He began to saunter off, frowning as though in deep thought. Hm,
you know what, he said, looking back at the commode.
I've wanted a set of legs something like that for
a long time. I've got a table in my own home,
and when I moved house, the mover's damaged the legs.
I'm very fond of that table. I keep my Bible

(18:44):
and sermon notes on it. He paused, stroking his chin.
These legs on your chest of drawers could be cut
off and fixed on my table. What you mean to
say is that you'd like to buy it, Rummins said, Well,
it might be a bit too much trouble, it's not

(19:05):
worth it. How much were you thinking of offering? Rummins asked, oh,
not much. I'm afraid you see, this is not a
genuine antigue. I'm not so sure, Rummins said. It's been
in here over twenty years. I bought it at the

(19:27):
manor house when the old squire died. Bert, where's that
old bill you once found at the back of one
of the drawers? You mean this? Bert lifted out a
piece of folded yellowing paper from one of the drawers
and carried it over to his father. You can't tell
me this riting ain't bloody, old, Rumins said, holding the

(19:51):
paper out to Boggis, whose arm was shaking as he
took it. It was brittle and it cracked slightly between
his fingers. The writing was in a long sloping copper
plate hand Edward Montague, esquire debtor to thus Chippendale, a

(20:14):
large mahogany commode table of exceeding fine wood, very rich carved,
set upon fluted legs, two very neat shaped long drawers
in the middle part, and to ditto on each side,
with rich chased brass handles and ornaments. The whole completely
finished in the most exquisite taste eighty seven pounds. Boggis

(20:40):
was fighting to suppress his excitement with the invoice. The
value had climbed even higher. What in Heaven's name, would
it fetch now twelve thousand pounds fourteen? Maybe fifteen or
even twenty. He tossed the paper contemptuously on the table

(21:02):
and said quietly, it's exactly what I thought of Victorian reproduction.
This is simply the invoice that the seller gave to
his client. Listen, Parson, Roumins said, how can you be
so sure it's fake? You haven't even seen it underneath
all that paint. Has anyone got a knife, asked Boggis.

(21:25):
Claude produced a pocket knife. Working with apparent casualness, Boggis
began chipping the paint off a small area on top
of the commode. Take a look. It was beautiful, a
warm little patch of mahogany, glowing like a topaz, rich

(21:46):
and dark, with the true color of its two hundred years.
What's wrong with it? Rummins asked, It's processed. Without the
slightest doubt, this would has been processed with lime. That's
what they use for mahogany, to give it that dark
aged color. Look closely. That touch of orange in among

(22:10):
the dark red brown is the sign of lime. How
much would you give? Rummins asked. Bogis looked at the
Commode frowned and shrugged his shoulders. I think ten pounds
would be fair. Ten pounds, Rummins cried, don't be ridiculous, parson.

(22:34):
Look at the bill. It tells you exactly what it
cost eighty seven pounds. Now it's antique. It's worth double,
if you'll pardon me, No, sir, it's not. It's a
second hand reproduction. But i'll tell you what. I'll go
as high as fifteen pounds. Make it fifty, Rummins said,

(22:58):
my dear man. Boggis said softly, I only want the legs.
The rest of it is firewood. That's all. Make it
thirty five. Rummins said I couldn't, sir, I couldn't. I'll
make you one final offer, twenty pounds. I'll take it.

(23:21):
Rummins snapped, Oh, dear, Boggis said, I shouldn't have started this.
You can't back out now, Parson. A deal's a deal. Yes, yes,
I know. Perhaps if I got my car, you gentlemen
would be kind enough to help me load it. Boggis

(23:41):
found it difficult not to break into a run. But
clergyman never run. They walk slowly, walk slowly, Boggis, keep calm, Boggis,
there's no hurry now, the commode is yours back in
the farmhouse, Rummins was saying, fancy him giving me twenty
pounds for a loaded junk like this. You did very nicely,

(24:05):
mister Rummins. Claude told him you think he'll pay you.
We don't put it in the car until he do.
And what if it won't go in the car, Claude asked,
he'll just say to hell with it and drive off.
Rummins paused to consider this alarming prospect. I've got an idea,

(24:28):
Claude went on. He told us that it was only
the legs he was wanting, So all we've got to
do is cut them off. Then it will be sure
to go in the car. All we're doing is saving
him the trouble of cutting them off when he gets home.
A bloody good idea, Rummins said, looking at the comode.

(24:50):
Within a couple of minutes, Claude and Bert had carried
the comode outside and Claude went to work with the saw.
When all the legs were severed, Bert arranged them carefully
in a row. Claude stepped back to survey the results.

(25:10):
Just let me ask you one question, mister Rummins, he said, slowly,
even now, could you put that enormous thing into a car?
Not unless it was a van, correct, Claude cried, And
Parsons don't have vans. All they've got is usually little
piddling Morris eight's or Austin seven's. Well, the legs is

(25:35):
all he wants, Rummins said. If the rest of it
won't go in, then he can leave it. He can't
complain he's got the legs. Now. You know better than that,
mister Rummins. Claude said, patiently. You know, damn well, he's
going to start knocking the price if he don't get

(25:55):
every single bit of this into the car. So why
don't we give him his fire would now and be
done with it. Yeah, fair enough, Raumins said, But fetch
the acts. It was hard work, and it took several
minutes before Claude had the whole thing more or less

(26:15):
smashed to pieces. I'll tell you one thing, he said,
straightening up and wiping his brow. That was a bloody
good carpet to put this job together. And I don't
care what the parson says. We're just in time, Rummins called.
Out here he comes. That's the end of the story. Okay,

(26:41):
So did you get it. Did you get what happened?
Did you understand what happened at the end? I hope.
So let me give you a summary of the story
in my own words, right in maybe slightly more simple English.
So we start with Boggies. He's an antiques d you
know what an antiques dealer is now? And Boggis has

(27:03):
a shop in London, in Chelsea and seems to be
quite successful. He's got a good reputation. People know him
as someone who always has interesting items to sell. He's
got a good reputation and he sells lots of antique
furniture on a regular basis. He's doing well. When people

(27:24):
ask where he gets his items, he just says, oh,
it's a little secret. So he doesn't give away how
he's getting all these items of antique furniture. He just
sort of mutters something always just a little secret of mine,
he says. In fact, the secret is that he's cheating.
He's tricking people. He's lying and deceiving people in order

(27:48):
to buy precious antiques at very low prices. Basically, he's
a swindler or a con artist. Okay, a swindler, a
con artist. These are names that we get to people
who lie or trick people, deceive people in order to
get profit, and sometimes commit crimes, you know. So what's

(28:11):
his trick. Well, nine years before he got this idea
when his car broke down in the countryside and he
visited a nearby farmhouse to get help. He wanted to
get a jug of water because the car had overheated.
That doesn't seem to happen so much these days, does it.
Cars don't overheat like they used to. But back in

(28:31):
the olden days, cars would overheat quite easily and you
had to fill them back up with water and let
them cool down. So anyway, he visited a nearby farmhouse
to get help when his car broke down, and while
he was there he spotted several antique chairs and was
able to buy them from the owner of the house,

(28:53):
who had no idea of their real value. So Boggits
had to probably work quite hard to negotiate, but he
found the two chairs in this farmhouse and he bought
them at probably a good price. Boggets then decided that
there might be lots of other valuable antique items in
other old homes in the country. So this was his

(29:13):
plan that he could every Sunday he could go into
the countryside to a different place and spot houses that
might contain more precious items of antique furniture, and then
he could you know, try and buy them. But he
decided to lie to the owners of the houses so

(29:35):
that he could visit their homes and check if they
had any valuable items which he could then buy. This
was his way of actually getting inside people's homes in
order to locate any valuable items. And he created a
false identity for himself, pretending to work for an organization
associated with the Victorian, the Victoria and Albert Museum, which

(30:00):
is a famous museum in London full of you know,
interesting old items, including some you know, priceless furniture and stuff.
So he pretended to work for the Victoria and Albert
Museum as part of a society for that there was
it the Royal Society for the Preservation of Antique Furniture
or something. He decided that people would not be suspicious

(30:25):
of him if he also dressed as a pastor, pastor, parson,
parson pastor, if he was spaghetti no, not that no.
A pastor is another synonym for a parson, vicar, clergyman, priest. Anyway,
he decided that if he dressed as a parson, people
would not suspect him. People would think he was harmless

(30:50):
and they would trust him. This was his plan, and
this worked very well, and one day he visited a
farmhouse in the countryside, or one day, as we discover
him at the beginning of the story, he's driven to
the top of a hill and he's surveying the area,
spotting houses that might contain some furniture. He spots a
few houses and plans to visit them. The first two

(31:11):
houses bring no results, but the third house is this farmhouse,
and to his great surprise, he found an extremely rare
and valuable item of furniture, a chippendale commode. The moment
when he sees it is quite interesting because he can
hardly contain his surprise, and he has to sit down,

(31:34):
and the farmers, the people in the house notice something
and they are you all right, And he brushes it
off and says, oh, it's my heart. It happens. Sometimes
I'll be okay in a minute. But in fact he's
just stunned at having seen a chippendale commode. As I
said at the beginning of the episode, these days, one

(31:57):
of these items could be sold for hundreds of thousands
of pounds, even millions of pounds. For example, the one
that I mentioned earlier was sold at Sotherby's in London
in twenty ten for three point seven million pounds. That's
how much a Chippendale comode can be sold for today.

(32:17):
I mean, that's a lot. That's a lot of money. Now,
Boggis couldn't believe his eyes when he saw it. It
was there in the farmhouse. The farmhouse was quite messy,
dirty old place, and in fact the Chippendale comode was
just in the corner of the room, covered in white paint.
Someone had painted it white. But he couldn't believe his

(32:39):
eyes when he saw it. And then he used all
his clever tricks to persuade the owner to sell it
to him for a very low price. He made the owner,
mister Rummins, believe that he didn't really need it. He
made him believe that it wasn't really worth very much
and that he could easily just leave without paying the
guy some As far as mister Rummins is concerned, getting

(33:03):
twenty pounds, ten pounds, fifteen, twenty, you know, fifty pounds,
that's all good. That's all better than nothing as far
as Rummins is concerned. So Boggis told the owner that
the Chest of Draws was basically a worthless copy, and
he only wanted it for the legs, which he would
use to repair a table in his home. The rest,

(33:26):
he said, could be used as firewood. After some negotiation,
the owner agreed to sell it for twenty pounds, thinking
he was getting a good price. In reality, it was
only a tiny fraction of the real value of the
Chest of Draws, and Boggis was secretly delighted and went

(33:48):
to his car right The car, by the way, is
also an important part of this, because Boggis actually drives
a station wagon. Station wagon is basically a kind of
an Estate eight car, or a car that you could use,
a car that's got a lot of storage in the back,
the sort of car that an antique stealer might drive
because it would allow him to put lots of furniture

(34:10):
in the back. These days that would be a van, really,
but in the nineteen fifties, a what was it called
a station wagon, the sort of car with a lot
of space in the back that you could use to
transport furniture around. So Boggis parked his car away from
the house because he didn't want people to see his

(34:30):
car because they because it would spoil the illusion that
he was a parson, because Parsons don't drive station wagons,
they drive little cars. So he kind of hid his
genuine car around the corner. So he went off to
get the car, and he was delighted. He could hardly
believe his luck. But while he was gone, the farmers

(34:54):
decided that they should make sure Boggis could fit the
chest of drawers into the car because they thought that
he's a parson. Therefore he would have a small Parsons
car like a Morris Minor, which is an old fashioned
small English car, a bit like a Mini or something
like that. Okay, so they thought, oh, there's no way
that they can get this into his car, so they

(35:17):
decided that they would They would do something so that
he wouldn't try to lower the price any further. Right,
Boggis had told them that he only needed it for
the legs, so they decided to cut the legs off,
which they did with a saw. What a total tragedy.

(35:38):
This is an original Chippendale commode and they're just going
at it with a saw cutting the legs off. Then,
assuming that Boggis would have a small car, as I said,
they thought it would be best to smash up the
rest of the table with an axe, just smash it
to bits, just to be sure it would fit in

(35:59):
the car. After all, Boggis said himself that it was
only good for firewood. So not only did they cut
the legs off this incredibly precious item, but they also
smashed it to pieces with an axe. And we can
only imagine how horrified Boggis was when he returned with

(36:22):
his car to see the smashed remains of his precious
Chippendale commode. Who knows what the shock and the bitter
irony of it might have done to him. So what
do you think happened? Listeners? What do you think happened next?
So the story ended with Rummins and the other guys going, oh,

(36:42):
I think we did a good job there removing the
legs and laid them out nice and carefully on the
floor for Boggis. And then they smashed up the rest
of the commode and left it in pieces, and they
were like, ah, I think we've done well here and
look here he comes now, So what happens next is
left up to our imagination. So what do you think

(37:05):
happened next? What was Boggis's reaction to the smashed furniture?
What do you think? I think he would have been shocked, right,
He would have been absolutely devastated, but he wouldn't have
been able to show it. He wouldn't have been able
to show how shocked he was, which of course would

(37:27):
have made it so much worse for him. He would
have had to try to contain his reaction because, after all,
he told Rummins he just wanted the legs and the
rest was firewood. He told him it was a worse,
worthless pile of wood basically, so they would expect him
to be glad that they cut up the commode for him.

(37:49):
But of course he'd be devastated, but he couldn't show
it because then they would know the truth. Then the
mask would slip. So who knows all this the pressure
of trying to maintain his front, to maintain the image
of the parson who just wanted some legs and some firewood,
The pressure of that, plus the sheer devastation of seeing

(38:13):
this furniture destroyed, and the fact that he wasn't going
to get his fortune. All this might be too much
for him, especially if it's really true that he has
a weak heart. So I don't know, who knows what
could have happened. Maybe he would have collapsed or something
in shock, and his greed might have been his fatal flaw.

(38:35):
In the end, a floor is like an imperfection in
someone's character. Okay, So here are some thoughts and comments
before I go through the story again, and maybe just
highlights some bits of language. So this is a story
about the dangers of greed, selfishness, dishonesty, fraud, and arrogance.

(38:59):
Fraud is a crime essentially, and it involves deception and profit.
So if you lie and you gain profit as a result,
that's a kind of fraud. For example, if you pretend
to be someone that you're not, or if you maybe
if you are an art dealer and you create a

(39:23):
fake painting, So you make a painting that looks exactly
like a van Goff or a Picasso or something, and
it's not a genuine Picasso, and then you sell it
as if it is and you get loads of money.
That's a kind of fraud as well. And other kinds
of fraud would be, for example, writing your accounts wrong,

(39:47):
so false accounting, for example, declaring that you got only
a certain amount of income so you don't have to
pay tax, or other forms of corruption like financial crime.
So that's all fraud as well. So Boggi's got what
he deserved, didn't he. Ultimately, the precious commode is destroyed

(40:07):
because of Boggis's greed. In order to get the lowest
price possible, Boggis convinces Rummins that he only wants the legs.
But this wasn't necessary. This chest of draws is worth
over half a million pounds in today's money. Boggis could
have offered Rummins of five percent. Boggis could have offered

(40:30):
Rummins five percent of that price, and Rummins would definitely
still have accepted. Right, what's five percent of half a million?
I don't know really, but Boggis's greed led him to
try to get the lowest possible price. He's trying to

(40:51):
negotiate down to zero point zero zero one percent of
the actual value of the property of the property, of
the actual value of the furniture. That's how much. That's
just ridiculous. He could easily have given Boggis. He could
easily have given rummins five percent, not zero point zero

(41:13):
zero one percent, and he would still Rummins would definitely
have accepted that. And you know, he didn't need to
do that, He didn't need to try and get it
for such a ridiculously low price. He could have given
him a fair price and he still would have made
ninety five percent profit. Right, But Bogis was greedy. He

(41:33):
wanted the absolutely lowest price possible. As a result, through
an ironic chain of events, the table was destroyed table
chest of draws, let's call it a chest. Bogist Boggis
survives the story, probably, although we don't know. Maybe he
has a heart attack or something at the end. But
let's say he survives the story and can probably carry

(41:56):
on doing his work and can even continue his nasty
tricks unless he gets discovered. But he will never ever
forget what happened, because a he missed the opportunity to
make his name and make his fortune, and b he
caused the destruction of an incredibly valuable item of our
antique furniture. And he'll have this on his conscience, right

(42:19):
this is he'll think about this. He'll never be able
to forget this. It'll be on his conscience for the
rest of his life, and he won't be able to
tell anyone about it because he would have to reveal
his devious methods. If he told people what happened, everyone
would know that he was a liar, a cheat, and
a con man. And so yeah, as I said before,

(42:41):
Bogis chose to hide his station wagon car in order
to convince people he was a real clergyman. And it
worked a little bit too well, didn't it. The commode
would have fitted in boggis cart Boggis's car, it would
have gone in the back, but the farmers assumed that
he had a small car because they thought he was
a parson. So if Boggis had just gone in and

(43:02):
negotiated fairly, without lying, without pretending to be a parson,
he probably would still have got the commode, albeit at
a higher price, and they wouldn't have removed the legs
or smashed it to pieces. Now, Boggis is certainly very clever,
and his deception is quite brilliant. In fact, his whole

(43:23):
performance of like ignoring the commode and then going back
to it and the whole thing is quite brilliant. But
he goes too far, and he pays the price. It's
a good story. Let's read the story again and look
at some of the vocabulary. I've been going for about
fifty minutes. I'll do some of the vocab. I'm not

(43:48):
suggesting I'm going to do the entire story, but let's go.
Let's have a look at what we can do. Mister
Boggis stopped the car just short of the summit, got
out and looked around. So the summit means the top
of a hill. Could also be the top of a mountain,
but this is in England, in the Home Counties, probably
Berkshire or something, so there are no mountains there, so
it would have been the top of a hill where

(44:09):
you could have a good view. So the summit means
the top, in this case, the top of a hill.
He got out and looked around. It was perfect. He
could see for miles. Over on the right he spotted
a medium farmhouse. To spot something is to see something
and identify it. Right, Okay, medium farmhouse over there beyond it,

(44:30):
meaning here's the farmhouse. In a bit further away beyond
it was a larger one, another farmhouse. There was a
house that might be a Queen Anne. So a Queen
Anne is a house from a particular period in English history. Okay,
particular type of house built in a certain period, certain style.
There was a Queen Anne, and there were light. There

(44:51):
were two likely farms on the left. Likely this means
it probably is it's likely to be a farm. Means
it's it probably is a farm. Okay, So he's not
sure exactly what those buildings are, but they are likely
to be farms. So these are two likely farms over
on the left, probably farms. Five places in all. Then

(45:14):
he drove to the other side of the hill, where
he saw six more possibles, six more possible targets, five farms,
and one big Georgian house. Again, a Georgian house that's
from the Georgian period in English history, a certain style.
Georgian houses are normally quite large, quite grand looking houses.

(45:37):
And he said, and the book says he ruled out
the latter. The latter. When you're listing things, the latter
is the last in the last item in the list.
So we've got five farms and one big Georgian house.
He ruled out the latter. So the latter means the
Georgian house the last thing in the list of things
that was just mentioned. The former is the previous one,

(46:01):
and the latter is the one mentioned after. See all right,
So for example, if so, if I say, would you
like the English tea or the Japanese tea, and he said, oh,
I'll choose the latter, that means the Japanese tea, the
English tea or the Japanese tea. I'll choose the former.
That's the English tea, although it's fairly formal language, so

(46:25):
we don't normally use it for choosing tea. But they go,
that's what that means. So he ruled out the latter.
If you rule something out, it's kind of like you
cross it out of your list. You cross it off
your list, so it's not included in your consideration or
in your plans anymore. You rule it out. Why did
he rule it out? Because it looked prosperous. Prosperous basically

(46:49):
is another way of saying rich, wealthy. So this George
and House looked prosperous. It looked like it was owned
by rich, wealthy people, and there was no point point
in calling on the prosperous, So there was no reason
to call on rich people. So why why not? Why
would he not visit rich people's houses. I suppose it's

(47:13):
because what Boggis is looking for is kind of probably
poor houses or modest houses, houses that probably don't really
houses that are owned by people who probably don't really
know the value of antique items, the sorts of places
where some valuable items may have just ended up somehow

(47:37):
just ended up there without the owners really knowing the
true value. So Boggis is targeting poor and less educated people,
which again is which again is pretty pretty mean, pretty
which again is pretty despicable behavior by Boggis, targeting people

(48:02):
who you know, who don't know any better. Apart from
the fact that he was at this moment disguised as
a clergyman, there was nothing very sinister about Cyril Boggis.
So there was nothing very sinister, I mean, he seemed
to be a fairly harmless looking person really, except for
the fact he was disguised. Other than that, there wasn't

(48:25):
really anything very scary or dangerous about him. By trade,
a dealer in antique furniture with a shop in the
King's Road, Chelsea, Boggis had achieved a considerable reputation by
producing unusual items with astonishing regularity, astonishing means like surprising,
like wow. People are kind of saying, this is astonishing, Boggis,

(48:48):
where do you get these items? What's your secret? And
Boggis says, oh, just never you mind. And for some
reason in our culture we point and tap out nose. Ah,
just my little secret. You tap your nose like that
when you are mentioned, when you're talking about a little

(49:09):
secret that you've got. Ah, never you mind. M M,
A little wink uh, A little secret of mine. Now,
Boggis's little secret was the result of what. Boggis's little
secret was a result of something that happened on a
Sunday afternoon nearly nine years before. This is how he

(49:31):
first got the idea. While he was driving in the
country side of the country. The car had overheated, and
he'd walked to a farmhouse to ask for a jug
of water. Okay, can I sorry to bother you, Sorry
to trouble you. My car is overheated on the road,
and I was wondering if I might trouble you for
a jug of water to help the car cool down. Oh, yes, certainly, so, yes,

(49:52):
just hold on a second, something like that. While he
was waiting for it, he glanced through the door. He
just had a quick look through the door, being a
bit nosy, and spotted a large oak armchair. Huh okay.
Oak is a kind of wood, very common in England.
It's good for making furnish, a good solid wood. The

(50:14):
back panel was decorated by an inlay of the most
delicate floral design. So the back panel of the chair,
the bit that you would rest your back on, was
decorated by an inlay. This is another piece of wood
that was probably added of the most delicate floral design.
So a design with flowers on it, very delicately made,

(50:36):
probably with a lot of skill. And the head of
a duck was carved on either arm. Good God, he thought,
which is a sort of slightly old fashioned expression of surprise.
Good God, this thing is late seventeenth century. So he
instantly identified that this item was late seventeenth century. That's

(51:02):
sixteen ninety something, sixteen eighty something. Yeah, valuable. He poked
his head in further. So he put his head in
the doorway a little further and looked further into the room,
and there was another one on the other side of
the fireplace. Yeah. Two two chairs like that must be

(51:24):
worth at least one thousand pounds up in London, so
that would be about thirty thousand pounds by today's money.
Not bad buy yourself a car, pretty good one. When
the woman of the house returned, Boggis asked if she
would like to sell her chairs, right? Would you be

(51:44):
interested in selling those two chairs? And she said they
weren't for sale, but just out of curiosity. How much
would he give? Sorry, they're not for sale, but just
out of curiosity? How much would you offer for them?
They bargained for half an hour. To bargain means to
negotiate the price. They bargain for half an hour, and

(52:06):
in the end, of course, Boggis got the chairs for
less than a twentieth of their value. So whatever that is,
thirty thousand divided by twenty, it was less than that,
so he got them. He got them for a real bargain,
because apparently he's clever. Right now, returning to London in

(52:27):
his station wagon, Boggis had an idea. If there was
good stuff in one farmhouse, why not in others? On Sundays,
why couldn't he comb the countryside? To comb the countryside, Yeah,
to comb, it's the same word as the thing you'd
you know, use to make your hair look all neat
and tidy or not maybe in my case, but comb

(52:52):
your hair. It's kind of thin with teeth, not a brush,
but comb to comb the countryside. In this case, to
comb the countryside is to search the countryside very very carefully. Okay,
all right. The isolated places, the farmhouses, the dilapidated country mansions.

(53:13):
Dilapidated means it's kind of old, worn down, damaged now
because time and use has made it old and damaged.
So if something is if a house is dilapidated, it
needs a lot of work to make it look nice again. Okay,

(53:33):
So the isolated places, the farmhouses, the dilapidated country mansions
would be his target. But country folk country people are
a suspicious lot. It's like, hmm, they don't trust people
very easily. Perhaps it would be best if he didn't
let them know he was a dealer. Yeah, that sounds logical.

(53:54):
He could be the telephone man, the plumber. Plumber is
the person who comes to fix the pipes, the water
pipes in your house, in your bathroom or kitchen. He
could be the telephone man, the plumber, the gas inspector.
He could even be a clergyman. Hmm, So then Boggis
ordered a large quantity of superior cards. So these are like,

(54:17):
you know, cards with little messages engraved on them, sort
of business cards with a following legend engraved. A legend
is basically a you know, sort of words that would
be printed on a card. Right. The Reverend Cyril Winnington

(54:40):
Boggis reverend is again another whoops, another word referring to
a clergyman. The Reverend Civil Winnington Boggis is a good
name President of the Society for the prevent for the
Preservation of Rare Furniture. Not President of the Society for
the Prevention of Rare Furniture. But that's kind of what

(55:02):
he became at the end of the story when he
inadvertently prevented this rare bit of furniture from existing, didn't
he He had it destroyed unintentionally in association with the Victoria
and Albert Museum. So a complete lie. He is not
president of this society. The society doesn't exist. From now

(55:25):
on every Sunday, he was going to be a nice
old person traveling around on a labor of love. A
labor of love is work that you do because you
love it. Because you're you're trying to achieve something just
because you love it. It's something you're passionate about, something
you work on just because you're passionate about it and
you love it. It's a labor of love for the society. Compiling,

(55:49):
making a listing, compiling an inventory. It's a list of
things of the treasures that lay hidden in country homes.
The scheme, the plan worked. In fact, it became a
lucrative business. If a business is lucrative, it means that
it makes lots of money profitable. And now it was

(56:12):
another Sunday. Bogg Is parked some distance from the gates
of his first house, the Queen Anne. He never liked
his car to be seen until a deal was made.
A dear old clergyman and a large station wagon never
seemed quite right together. But there was nothing of value
in the house. So the first house, the Queen hanned
nothing of value in there. The next stop, no one

(56:32):
was home. The third farmhouse. The third place, a farmhouse
was back in the fields, so he had to walk
through the fields to get to the house. It looked
rambling and dirty. Rambling means that well, a bit like
you can be rambling when you speak, meaning you just
kind of go on and on. In the same way
a house can be rambling. One room leads to another room,

(56:54):
and it's all a bit disorganized. It looked rambling and dirty.
He didn't hold out much hope for it. If you
hold out hope for something, it means you think, oh, there,
I think there might be something here. But in this
case he's like, no, I don't think there'll be much here. No,
I don't hold out much hope for this place. Three
men were standing in the yard, that's the space at

(57:16):
the back of the house. When they caught sight of
the small, pot bellied man in his black suit and
parsons collar. They stopped talking. Pot bellied. If you've got
a pot belly, it means you've got a round belly,
like a fat stomach. Okay, around pot belly. Maybe you'd
get one from drinking too much beer. Pot belly. So

(57:38):
this is a description of Boggis. He was small, he
had a pot belly. And when they saw this man,
this small pot bellied man in his black suit and
parsons collar, they stopped talking and watched him suspiciously, which
country folk can do sometimes. The farm owner was a

(57:59):
stumpy man. So that's short with small shifty eyes. If
you have shifty eyes, it means your eyes move around,
maybe suspiciously. What do you want? Eh hm hm. The
tall youth as a young person beside him was his
son Bert. The short man with broad shoulders was clawed.

(58:23):
A neighbor broad means wide. And what exactly might you
be wanting? Rummans asked, So he speaks a bit like
you know, kind of country person, a farmer. What might
you be wanting? Maybe I should push the acts in
a bit more. And what exactly might you be wanting?
Roumans asked. Boggs explained at some length the aims and

(58:47):
ideals of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture.
He probably put on a bit of an act. Well.
I work for the profer the Society, the Royal Society
for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. Here my card. It's
a labor of love, you see. I travel the length
and breadth of the country searching for rare items which

(59:07):
can be logged in an inventory at the Victorian Albert
Museum in London. And in fact, if we find any
special items, sometimes we may be placed to even make
an offer to make sure that the furniture is well
kept right, and Rummin said, we don't have any You're

(59:27):
wasting your time from unfriendly now just a minute's Boggi
Is said, raising a finger. The last man who said
that to me was an old farmer down in Sussex.
Sussex is one of the home counties, one of the
counties near London. And when he finally let me into
his house, do you know what? I found a dirty
looking old chair in the kitchen that turned out to

(59:50):
be worth four hundred pounds. I showed him how to
sell it and he bought himself a new tractor with
the money. He bought himself a new tractor, which is
you know, Boggis knows who he's talking to that this
is the sort of thing that Rummins would be interested in.
Of course, a new tractor would be very important for him.

(01:00:15):
Rummins shifted uneasily on his feet, so he sort of shifted,
meaning he shifted his weight, maybe moved his weight from
his left foot to his right foot. Well, he said
that there's no harm, and you taking a look, there's
no harm. It couldn't hurt if you just took a look.

(01:00:36):
That's not going to hurt. There's no harm in that.
He led the way, meaning like follow me, I'll lead
the way. He led the way into an exceedingly like
extremely filthy meaning dirty living room. Okay, and there it was.
Boggis saw it at once and gasped, that's to gasp.

(01:01:00):
He stood staring for ten seconds, at least, not daring
to believe what he saw before him. If you don't
dare to believe it, it's just like I. He can't
believe it. In fact, he won't believe it. He won't
even dare. He's not quite confident enough to even believe
that he can see what is before him. It couldn't

(01:01:24):
be true. At that point, Boggis became aware of the
three men watching him intently. They're watching him intently. They're
watching him, studying him very carefully. They'd seen him gasp
and stare in a flash, meaning very quickly. Boggis staggered
to the nearest chair and collapsed into it, breathing heavily.

(01:01:51):
What's the matter, Claude asked, Oh, it's nothing. He gasped,
I'll be all right in a minute. I thought maybe
you were looking at something. Romans said, no, no, Boggis said,
it's just my heart. It happens every now and then.
I'll be all right, every now and then, meaning sometimes

(01:02:11):
all right, he must have time to think, he told himself.
Take it gently, Boggis, keep calm. These people may be ignorant,
meaning uneducated, but they are not stupid. And if it
is really true, So to a layman what he had
seen might not have appeared particularly impressive. A layman is

(01:02:33):
a normal person who doesn't have specialist knowledge. Okay, So
if you're in the world of science, you have specialists
who understand about certain you know, chemistry or physics or
biology or whatever. But I'm not a specialist, so I'm
just a layman. Right. Also in law, you've got lawyers

(01:02:55):
who understand all the legal terms. They understand the law
and everything. And then ordinary people who haven't studied law,
we are just laymen or lay people. So a lay
person is someone who doesn't have specialist knowledge in a
certain area, just an ordinary person. So to a layman,
what he'd seen might not have appeared particularly impressive, covered

(01:03:18):
as it was with dirty white paint. So someone had
painted this thing, which I suppose is not the end
of the world, because you can remove paint from furniture.
Apparently so to a layman it looked unimpressive, but it
was a dealer's dream. Boggis knew that among the most

(01:03:38):
coveted examples of eighteenth century English furniture are three pieces
known as the Chipendale commodes. If something's coveted, it means
it's desired, then everyone wants to have it. Okay, Among
the most coveted examples of eighteenth century English furniture are
three pieces, only three, the chip and Commodes. Maybe there

(01:04:02):
are more chip and Dell comodes than three. Maybe this
is the fourth. I don't know. A trifle unsteadily if
you are If you say a trifle something, it means
a little bit slightly old fashioned language, a trifle unsteadily
meaning a little unsteadily. If you're unsteady, you're not steady.

(01:04:25):
For example, if you do something unsteadily, it means maybe
your legs are a bit wobbly and you might fall again.
Because remember, Boggis is still recovering from the shock of
seeing this thing, So he moves around the room a
little unsteadily, you know, trying to regain his composure. Boggis
began to move around the room, examining the other furniture

(01:04:48):
one piece at a time. Apart from the commode, it
was a very poor lot, so the rest of it
was not worth anything. Really nice oak table, he said,
not old enough to be of any interest. This chest
of draws. Boggis walked casually past the commode, worth a
few pounds. I dare say, I dare say, is like saying,

(01:05:11):
I suppose a crude reproduction. I'm afraid if something is crude,
like in this case a piece of furniture, if it's crude,
if it's if the design or the work is crude,
it means it's done kind of badly by someone who
didn't really know what they were doing. If I made

(01:05:33):
a table, it would be a very crude table. It'd
just be like, right piece of wood legs, bang bang
bang there there it is, and the table's unsteady, wobbles
my crude carpentry skills. A crude reproduction, I'm afraid. So
he's saying that this one is not an original. It's
just someone's attempt to copy that style, and they've done

(01:05:56):
it very badly, very crudely. That's a strong bit of furniture,
rummins said. Some nice carving on it too. Carving is
when the wood is kind of cut into different shapes.
With a chisel, you would carve wood into different shapes,
so you can carve a carve some designs on a

(01:06:17):
piece of furniture. Okay, nice carving, said Rummins. Machine carved,
Boggis replied, bending down to examine the exquisite craftsmanship. Exquisite
means wonderful, excellent, mm hmm. He began to saunter off.

(01:06:38):
If you saunter if you kind of walk in a
casual kind of way. He began to saunter off, frowning
as if in deep thought. You know what, he said,
looking back at the commode. So this is all part
of his act. He's pretending not to care about it. No,
saunter off and then turn back. Oh, you know, he said,

(01:07:01):
looking back at the commode. I've wanted a set of
legs something like that for a long time. I've got
a table in my own home, and when I moved house,
the mover's damaged the legs. I'm very fond of that table.
He's fond of the table he has at home, and
he likes it a lot. He's you know, he feels
attached to it. He likes it, he's fond of it.

(01:07:24):
So he's got a table at home, and the legs
have been damaged by some movers, some people who moved
the furniture when he moved to a new house. So
his nice table he's got at home needs a new
set of legs. He said, I keep my Bible and
sermon notes on that table. He paused, stroking his chin.

(01:07:45):
These legs on your chest of drawers could be cut
off and fixed onto my table. And Rummins has been
caught by this trick, right, Rummins is, it's it's clever
because h. Boggis is essentially encouraging Rummans to take initiative

(01:08:07):
to Now Rummins wants Boggis to buy it. Right Rummans is,
like Boggis is not concerned. But Rummins now spots an
opportunity to actually sell this thing and get some money
maybe that you could sell, you know, buy you could
buy something useful with it that money. And so Rummins says,
what you mean to say is that you'd like to

(01:08:29):
buy it. Well, it might be worth it might be
a bit too much. Trouble now, it's not worth it.
How much were you thinking of offering how much were
you thinking of offering, Rummans asked, not much. I'm afraid
you see, this is not a genuine antique. It's not
genuine means, it's not it's not real. It's a it's
a fake antique. I'm not so sure, Rummins said, it's

(01:08:53):
been in here over twenty years. I bought it at
the manor house when the old squire died. So the
house would be the house owned by the maybe the
aristocrat or the sort of the the the lord of

(01:09:13):
that area would own the manor house. The rich person
of the area, the old squire. That's probably when the
owner of the house, the owner of the land when
he died. So Rummins bought it from the manor house.
The manor house would be like downtown Abbey or something
like that. I bought it from the manor house when

(01:09:34):
the old squire died. But where's that old one, old bill?
Where's that old bill you once found at the back
of one of the drawers. Now, if you're an antique stealer,
having an original bill, like a proof of purchase or
a proof of manufacture or something like that, a piece
of paper which marks the history of that item, that

(01:09:56):
again adds more value to the proper, to the the property, no,
to the item. Property would be a house or something,
but we're talking about furniture, okay, So that would add
more value to the furniture. If there's actually a bill
and there is one for this chipperdalka mode and Bert says,
what you mean this? And he lifted out a piece

(01:10:17):
of folded yellowing paper. Right, piece of sort of yellowing,
so the paper is going yellow, which means it's old.
He lifted it out from one of the drawers and
carried it to his father. You can't tell me this
writing ain't bloody old. Ain't is basically sort of colloquial English.

(01:10:39):
It's not strictly correct, but people say it a lot,
and you see it in song lyrics and stuff like that.
Don't you ain't means isn't haven't aren't right. You can't
tell me this writing isn't bloody old. You can't tell
me this writing ain't bloody old, Rumin said, holding the
paper out to Boggis. And Boggis is again, he can't

(01:11:02):
believe his eyes that there's actual a real bill of
sale that goes along with this thing, an original one,
and Boggis. His arm is shaking as he takes it
um and it was brittle, So if paper is brittle,
it means it's very old and it breaks easily, so

(01:11:24):
it's definitely the original bill. It was brittle. It cracked
slightly between his fingers, so it's old. It's the original one.
The writing was in long sloping copper plate hand This
means the handwriting, So the note is written in handwriting
in a sloping style. So that's a very old fashioned

(01:11:47):
style of handwriting. And probably Boggis would identify it and
would know that this comes from the eighteenth century, and
the note is written in sort of fairly old fashioned language.
Edward Montague esquire debtor to Thos Chippendale, Thos, very old fashioned.

(01:12:11):
We wouldn't say that these days. You know, this is
clearly original, maybe from the eighteenth century. A large mahogany
commode table of exceeding fine wood, very rich carved. The
spelling of carved ar VD not ed c r v
D so not ed not v ed, which again shows

(01:12:32):
that this is from centuries ago, set upon fluted legs,
two very neat shaped long drawers. Anyway, so the note
is original. Boggis was fighting to suppress his excitement. Trying
to suppress excitement is keep it down. So he's obviously, whoa,

(01:12:53):
this is the real thing, but he has to, okay,
keep suppressed the excitement. With the invoice, the value had
climbed even higher. What in Heaven's name would it fetch now?
Fetch meaning get? Meaning? What amount of money would it

(01:13:13):
get if he sold it now? Maybe twelve thousand pounds, fourteen,
maybe fifteen, or even twenty thousand pounds, remember twenty thousand pounds,
That would be six hundred thousand pounds in today's money.
It'd probably be worth a lot more as well, because
no doubt a Chippendale commode in twenty twenty three would
be worth even more than that. I mean, as we know,

(01:13:35):
one got sold in twenty ten for nearly four million,
so it wouldn't be surprised if if it went for
about five million or something now. Anyway, he tossed the
paper contemptuously on the table. If you have contempt for something,
it means you you don't give it any respect at all.

(01:13:55):
You think it's worthless. He tossed the note contemptuously on
the table. Nah, it's exactly what I thought of Victorian reproduction. Okay,
so the Victorians, Okay, people who are around during the
reign of Queen Victoria the end of the nineteenth century,

(01:14:17):
they did a lot of reproductions, a lot of copying.
They copied things like furniture and architecture from previous periods,
and sometimes they did it kind of badly as well.
Right in that sort of modern period, a lot of
stuff would have been copied and done quite quickly, maybe

(01:14:37):
using machines, and as a result, those copies would have
been worthless. So ah, just no, it's a Victorian reproduction.
This is simply the invoice that the seller gave to
his client. Listen, Parson Romyin said, how can you be
so sure it's fake? You haven't seen it underneath all

(01:14:57):
that paint. Has anyone got a knife, asked Boggis. Claude
produced a pocket knife and Boggis with apparent casualness. So
again he's pretending to be all casual, like he doesn't care.
He chipped off paint from a small area on top

(01:15:18):
of the commode. Ah, take a look, but it was beautiful.
The original wood underneath was beautiful, a warm little patch
of mahogany, a very valuable hard wood, glowing like a topaz,
rich and dark, with the true color of its two

(01:15:38):
hundred years. Oh, what's wrong with it? Rummins asked, It's
process He's lying, of course, without the slightest doubt. This
wood has been processed with lime. Now, I don't really
know what that means, either would be processed. I suppose

(01:15:58):
if wood is processed with lime, it means it's people
have someone's used lime on the wood to protect the
wood or something, maybe to make cheap wood look like
more expensive woods. You rub lime into it or something.
I don't know, but he said, no, it's been processed
with lime. Lime. That's not lime the fruit, but that's lime,

(01:16:21):
a kind of mineral like chalk okay, an alkaline mineral.
How much would you give in rummins accent? How much
would you give? Rummins asked. Boggis looked at the commode,
frowned with his you know, made an expression with his

(01:16:44):
eyes to make it look like he was thinking seriously,
and shrugged his shoulders, like lifted his shoulders up and down. Huh.
I think ten pounds would be fair. Okay, so it's
a very unbelievably low offer. It's about three hundred pounds,
though by today's standards ten pounds. Rummins cried, So Rummins

(01:17:07):
is not a fool. Okay, he's negotiating. He knows it's
worth more than that, but he's got no idea of
its real value. Ten pounds. Rummins cried, don't be a
ridiculous parson. Look at the bill. It tells you exactly
what it cost eighty seven pounds. Now it's antique, it's

(01:17:28):
worth double. So Boggis has got Rummins exactly where he
wants him. Where Boggis is trying to negotiate for something
like one hundred and eighty pounds when this thing is
worth what was it sixty I can't remember twenty thousand.

(01:17:50):
So Boggis has got him where he wants him. The
margins here that are being negotiated are all wonderful for Boggis,
and this is just cruel what he's doing. It's just
spirited and greedy to try and negotiate from that point
all the way down to twenty pounds, which is what
he gets it for. Originally, he could have just said, okay, fine.

(01:18:11):
He could have paid Rummins, you know, one hundred and
eighty pounds, and Rummins would have been very happy with
that right, one hundred and eighty pounds in today's money.
I don't know, but Rumman's gound have used that right.
But no he's not. Boggis isn't satisfied with that. He
wants to push it as far as he can go,
which is really not not fair at all. And Boggis said,

(01:18:38):
if you'll pardon me, sir, it's not it's a second
hand reproduction. But I'll tell you what. I'll go as
high as fifteen pounds, make it fifty, Rummens said, my
dear man, Boggis said softly, I only want the legs.
The rest of it is firewood, that's all. Make it

(01:18:59):
thirty five. Rummins said, I couldn't, sir, I couldn't. What
a performance. I'll make you one final offer, twenty pounds.
I'll take it. Rummins snapped, Oh, dear Boggis, I shouldn't
have started this. You can't back out now, pass and
a deal's a deal. So Rummins is all in here. Yes, yes,

(01:19:22):
I know. Perhaps if I got my car, you gentlemen
would be kind enough to help me load it. To
load the car would be to load the load the
furniture onto the car. Boggis found it difficult not to
break into a run, so he's walking back to the
car quickly, finding it difficult not to start running to
the car to break into a run. Walk slowly, Boggis,

(01:19:46):
keep calm, there's no hurry now. The commode is yours.
Back in the farmhouse, Rummins was saying, fancy him giving
me twenty pounds for a load of junk like this?
If you say fancy that or fancy something happening, it's like, well,
who would have expected that to happen? Ah, what a surprise.

(01:20:07):
It's amazing, isn't it. Fancy him giving me twenty bounds
for a load of junk like this. You did very nicely,
mister Rummins. Claude told him you think he'll pay you,
So they're convinced that they've done a really good job
here in the negotiation, which is quite sweet. We don't
put it in the car till he do. No, we

(01:20:28):
don't put it in the car till he do, meaning
we don't put it in the car until he pays us.
And what if it won't go in the car, Claude asks, asked,
he'll just say to hell with it and drive off.
So they're concerns that Boggis is not going to follow
through on the deal. They want to make sure that

(01:20:48):
he'll be able to get it in the car so
that they'll get their money. Rummans pause to consider this
alarming prospect. Worrying alarming means worrying a prospect is a
potential thing that could happen. Hmm, I got an idea.
Claude went on. He told us that it was only
the legs he was wanting, right, it's only the legs

(01:21:11):
he wants. But in this case, he told us it
was only the legs he was wanting. So all we
got to do is cut him off, and then it
will be sure to go in the car. All we're
doing is saving him the trouble of cutting them off
when he gets home. A bloody good idea, Rumin said,
looking at the comode. Within a couple of minutes, Claude

(01:21:34):
and Bert had carried the comode outside and Claude went
to work with the saw. So a saw is something
you'd use to cut wood. When all the legs were severed,
meaning cut off, Bert arranged them carefully in a row. Right.
Claude stepped back to survey the results. Survey. I mean,

(01:21:56):
look at the results from above. Just let me ask
you one question, mister Rummins, he said, slowly, even now,
could you put that enormous thing into a car? Not
unless it was a van? Correct, Claude cried, And Parsons
don't have vans. All they've got usually is piddling little

(01:22:17):
Morris eight's or Austin seven's. So these are both types
of car, old English cars that are small. Piddling means
small and not very powerful. So, oh dear, the worm
has turned and Boggis's act, his act of deception, is
now working against him in the most satisfying way in

(01:22:42):
this story. Oh well, you know we wouldn't be able
to get that into his car. He's probably got a
small car, right, The legs is all he wants, Rummins said.
If the rest of it won't go in, then he
can leave it. He can't complain he's got the legs. Yeah,
fair enough, enough, that's true. He did say he only

(01:23:03):
wanted the legs. Now, now you know better than that,
mister Rummins, Claude said, patiently, you know, damn well, he's
going to start knocking the price if he don't get
every single bit of this into the car. So why
don't we give him his firewood now and be done

(01:23:23):
with it? File We firewood, of course, is wood that
you would use to burn on the fire. So he's
so Claude is kind of being cautious and saying, look,
you know, I think that if he can't get that
in the car, then he's going to try and reduce
the price. If it's just the legs, right, So why
don't we give him the firewood so he can't complain

(01:23:45):
fair enough, Rummin said Bert. Fetch the axe. An axe
is a large tool that you would use to chop
up woods. You chop a tree down with an axe,
You swing it and thongk chop chop right, he chop
something up with an axe and you can you can
break something to pieces with an axe. Fetch the axe,
meaning get the axe. It was hard work and it

(01:24:07):
took several minutes. Hard work because this is this is
an incredible piece of craftsmanship, a really, really really well
made chest of drawers. Not just some think something from
Ikea which you could kind of smash to pieces with
your feet and hands. This is a this is a

(01:24:28):
virtually priceless item of furniture. So it was very hard work.
It took them several minutes, but they had the whole
thing more or less smash to pieces. I'll tell you
one thing, he said, straightening up, wiping his brow. If
you wipe your brow, it means you wipe the front
of your head after you've been doing heavy work or
doing exercise. I'll tell you one thing. That was a

(01:24:50):
bloody good carpenter put this job together. And I don't
care what the parson says. Yeah, it was a bloody
good carpenter. It was Thomas Chippendale himself. Carpenter is someone
who builds things out of wood. I'll tell you what.
It was, a bloody good carpenter put this job together.
I don't care what the parson says, because the parson
has led them to believe it's a crude copy made

(01:25:13):
in the maid's You know, only a few decades before
a we're just in time, Rummins called out Here he comes,
And this is where we imagine the parson rushing back
over with the money and the car and to discover

(01:25:34):
his precious Chippendale commode reduced to pieces smashed up, and
then these three guys looking very proud of themselves. We'll
put that in the car for you now if you want. So,
there you go. That's Parson's Pleasure by Roald Dahl. Good story,

(01:25:54):
isn't it. You can let me know what you think
in the comments section. That's the end of the episode.
I just wanted to say at the end here that
this story was actually turned into an episode of a
TV show. So they made a TV series called Tales
of the Unexpected. It was a very popular TV series
and each episode was an adaptation of one of Roll

(01:26:16):
Dahl's stories. Okay, and so there is an episode of
Tales of the Unexpected for Parsons Pleasure, and it's definitely
worth a watch. It's really good. I mean it was
made in the eighties probably, so it looks kind of
old fashioned, but it's still really good and you can
find it on YouTube. I highly recommend it. I'll add
it to the page for this episode on my website.

(01:26:38):
You can actually see Roll Dahal the author himself. He
introduces the episode. You see him sitting in a nice
leather armchair and he introduces the episode. And the acting
in the performance is excellent, particularly by Sir John Gielgood
who plays Boggis. Now Sir John Gielgood is one of

(01:27:00):
the most famous names in British acting ever, one of
the UK's most famous and highly respected actors both on
stage and on film. A proper stage actor with an
excellent reputation, so we get to enjoy the wonderful acting
of Sir John Gielgood as Boggis, and also the other

(01:27:20):
actors are excellent too, the farmers and stuff. It's really
really well done, so I highly recommend that you watch
that TV version of this story as well. You'll find
the video on the page for this episode on my website. Okay,
but that's it for this episode. Thank you so much
for listening, thank you for watching, and I will speak

(01:27:41):
to you very soon in another episode of my podcast.
But for now, it's time to say goodbye bye bye
bye bye bye bye bye bo