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Swift, Jonathan, 1667-1745

"Gulliver's Travels"

I got up in an instant; and orders being given
to clear the way before me, and it being likewise a moonshine
night, I made a shift to get to the palace without trampling on any
of the people. I found they had already applied ladders to the
walls of the apartment, and were well provided with buckets, but
the water was at some distance. These buckets were about the size
of large thimbles, and the poor people supplied me with them as
fast as they could: but the flame was so violent that they did
little good. I might easily have stifled it with my coat, which I
unfortunately left behind me for haste, and came away only in my
leathern jerkin. The case seemed wholly desperate and deplorable;
and this magnificent palace would have infallibly been burnt down
to the ground, if, by a presence of mind unusual to me, I had not
suddenly thought of an expedient. I had, the evening before, drunk
plentifully of a most delicious wine called glimigrim, (the
Blefuscudians call it flunec, but ours is esteemed the better
sort,) which is very diuretic.


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