38. For the most part, subjects just have to put up with them until someone kills the king in question. For example, the Roman emperor Caligula (AD 12–41), who is said to have tried to make his horse, Incitatus, a consul of Rome, was stabbed thirty times. Eric XIV of Sweden (1533–1577) was poisoned by pea soup laced with arsenic. Actually, madness is something of a perennial problem when it comes to royalty, as a considerable number of kings have been distinctly suspect on the sanity front. Lesser-known royal lunatics include Charles VI of France (1368–1422), also known as Charles the Mad—but not to his face—who believed himself to be made of glass and had iron rods placed in his clothing to prevent him from breaking, and once refused to bathe or change his clothes for five months. Meanwhile, Robert of Clermont (1256–1318), younger son of Louis IX of France, went mad after being hit on the head several times with a sledgehammer in the course of a joust, but then being hit on the head with a sledgehammer will do that to a person.
39. The people who say that sarcasm is low wit are usually the ones who keep getting caught out by other people being sarcastic at their expense. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit? Oh, you don’t say …
40. Like a great many organisms straining for sophistication, the rocks had also created their own basic form of music. Please insert your own joke here.
41. Somewhere in the depths of Hell, a massive invisible floating demon named Fred had just arrived home to his invisible wife, Felicity, and invisible child, Little Fred. “Where have you been, then?” asked his invisible wife. “I don’t know what you think you are, sauntering about like you haven’t a care in Hell, leaving me all alone to keep Little Fred amused. Most of the time, it’s like you’re never here at all.” Fred, being invisible, was tempted to point out that, even when he was there, it was like he was never there at all, but he didn’t think this was the time, as, although he was invisible, and therefore should have presented a hard target for his beloved missus, she seemed to have an uncanny ability to score direct hits upon him with various household objects. Instead he put a police car and a van beside Little Fred, or where he thought Little Fred might roughly be. In the manner of kids everywhere, Little Fred immediately picked up the vehicles and banged them together, before running their wheels across the dirt while making brrrmmmm-brrrmmmm noises.
“They’re supposed to come with little men,” said Fred, “but I know he’d just lose them.”
“What about me?” asked Felicity.
“Just a kiss for you, my love,” said Fred.
He pecked lovingly at the air.
“I’m over here, you idiot …”
42. Most people will spend their lives doing jobs that they don’t particularly enjoy, and will eventually save up enough money to stop doing those jobs just in time to start dying instead. Don’t be one of those people. There’s a difference between living, and just surviving. Do something that you love, and find someone to love who loves that you love what you do.
It really is that simple.
And that hard.
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John Connolly, The Infernals
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