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 uh 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 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 uh antiques are very old objects especially items of furniture so we're talking about old uh chairs tables chests of drawers 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 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 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 you 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 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 this means if you are an antiques dealer this means finding objects which are old obviously and the older the better well made 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 uh and dealers and that's antique Steelers not drug dealers dealers will always be on the lookout for valuable antiques that could be worth hundreds thousands or even millions of pounds like for example a very precious Chippendale commode which is a fairly well-known uh antique chest of drawers built by Thomas Chippendale in the 18th century this is an example of like famous a famous set of antiques if you find a Chip and Dale commode that could be worth millions of pounds okay a chest of drawers is like the sort of thing that you would have in your home with drawers in it you open the drawers you can keep things in it most of us get our chests of drawers from places like Ikea right and you have to build them yourself um but uh if you find a chippendaleca mode that one would have been made by Thomas Chippendale in the 18th century one of those 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 story has a really good little twist at the end and I think you will really enjoy it so the story is called Parsons pleasure by roll Dahl um let me just explain that so a person uh that's a person not a person I think you know what a person is but a person this is basically another word for a priest or a vicar this is a a person usually a man depending on the rules of the church a person normally a man um these days it can be women can become members of the clergy anyway a person is someone who leads services in a local church in England so a person is in the Anglican Church system so similar words would be a vicar a priest a member of the clergy or a clergyman a person right do you know what I'm talking about Parsons usually wear a black jacket and a black shirt with a white collar uh it's a bit of a cliche of rural English life if you think of sort of images of old-fashioned English life in the countryside in a town somewhere in the countryside the sort of images that you imagine you would see nice country lanes Farms Old Country houses and maybe a person 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 person but he dresses like a person okay he's not a person but he dresses like one now why would someone do that why would someone pretend to be a clergyman or a person 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 Dahl obviously all the credit for the story goes to him Roald Dahl 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 Roald Dahl's books 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 Roald 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 Roald Dahl published by penguin it's actually a two volume book and it contains all of his short stories um 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 2 of the complete short stories and I'm going to read a slightly Abridged version of that story okay not the full story just a a 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 use in English lessons ages ago at the start of my teaching career so this Abridged version is in um this book Headway Advanced by Liz and John saws 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 this is the first edition of Headway Advance published in the 1990s I think by Oxford University press now when we're nearly ready to start the story I promise I'm going to read this 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 to make sure you've understood it I'll just 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 uh the story was first published in 1958 so it is slightly old-fashioned but not too much um 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 um since the story was written because of inflation so just to kind of help you understand how much money is being talked about you could multiply everything by about 30 let's say so one pound in 1958 is worth about 30 pounds now that's around about 35 US dollars or 35 Euros depending on when you listen to this um so one pound would be 30 pounds now a thousand pounds in 1950 1958 would be um uh 30 000 pounds now uh 20 pounds in 1958 would be can you do the maths 600 pounds now and 20 000 pounds in 1958 in today's money would be about 600 000 pounds that's over half a million okay right so let's start now Mr Bogus 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 bogus and what happened nine 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 Mr Bogus 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 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 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 bogus by trade a dealer in antique furniture with a shop in the King's Road Chelsea bogus had achieved 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 bogus's little secret was a result of something that happened 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 armchair 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 17th century he poked his head in further 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 bogus 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 for half an hour and in the end of course bogus got the chairs for less than a 20th of their value returning to London in his station wagon bogus had an idea if there was good stuff in one Farmhouse why not in others on Sundays why couldn't he comb 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 could even be a clergyman hmm bogus ordered a large quantity of superior cards on which the following Legend was engraved the Reverend Cyril Winnington bogus president of the society for the preservation of rare Furniture in association with the Victoria 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 now it was another Sunday bogus 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 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-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 what exactly might you be wanting Romans asked Bargains explained at some length the aims and ideals for the society for the preservation of rare furniture we don't have any said Romans you're wasting your time now just a minute sir bogus said raising a finger the last man who 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 400 pounds I showed him how to sell it and he bought himself a new tractor with the money Romans 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 bogus saw it at once and gasped he stood staring for 10 seconds at least not daring to believe what he saw before him it couldn't be true at that point bogus became aware of the three men watching him intently they had seen him gasp and stare in a Flash bogus staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed into it Breathing heavily what's the matter Claude asked it's it's nothing he asked I'll be all right in a moment I thought maybe you were looking at something Ramin said no no no bogus said it's just my heart it happens every now and then I'll be all right he must have time to think he told himself take it gently bogus Keep Calm these people may be ignorant but they are not stupid and if it is really true to a Layman what he'd seen might not have appeared particularly impressive covered as it was with dirty white paint but it was a dealer's dream bogus knew that among the most coveted examples of 18th century English Furniture are three pieces known as The Chippendale commodes a trifle unsteadily bogus began to move 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 drawers bogus walked casually past the commode worth a few pounds I dare say a crude reproduction I'm afraid that's a strong bit of furniture Ramen said some nice carving on it too machine carved bogus replied bending down to examine the Exquisite craftsmanship he began to saunter off frowning as though in deep thought 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 movers damaged the legs I'm very fond of that table I keep my Bible 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 Ramin said well it might be a bit too much trouble it's not worth it how much were you thinking of offering ramen's asked oh not much I'm afraid you see this is not a genuine antique I'm not so sure Ramin said it's been in here over 20 years I bought it at the 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 writing ain't bloody old Ramen said holding the paper out to bogus 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 deta to thus Chippendale a 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 two ditto on each side with Rich chaste brass handles and ornaments the hole completely finished in the most Exquisite taste 87 pounds bogus 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 14 maybe 15 or even 20. he tossed the paper contemptuously on the table and said quietly it's exactly what I thought a Victorian reproduction this is simply the invoice that the seller gave to his client listen Parson Ramin 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 bogus Claude produced a pocket knife working with apparent casualness bogus 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 and dark with the true color of its 200 years what's wrong with it Romans asked it's processed without the slightest doubt this word 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 the dark red Brown is the sign of lime how much would you give ramen's asked bogus looked at the commode frowned and Shrugged his shoulders I think 10 pounds would be fair 10 pounds Romans cried don't be ridiculous person look at the bill it tells you exactly what it cost 87 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 I'll tell you what I'll go as high as 15 pounds make it 50. Roman said my dear man bogus said softly I only want the legs the rest of it is firewood that's all make it 35. Ramen said I couldn't sir I couldn't I'll make you one final offer 20 pounds I'll take it Ramen snapped oh dear bogus said I I shouldn't have started this you can't back out now person a Deal's a deal yes yes I know perhaps if I got my car you gentlemen would be kind enough to to help me load it bogus found it difficult not to break into a run but clergyman never run they walk slowly walk slowly bogus Keep Calm bogus there's no hurry now the commode is yours back in The Farmhouse ramens was saying fancy him giving me 20 pounds for a load of junk like this you did very nicely Mr Romans 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 Roman's paused to consider this alarming Prospect I've got an idea Claude went on he told us that it was only the legs he was wanting so all we got to do is cut him 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 Ramen said looking at the commode within a couple of minutes Claude and Bert had carried the car mode outside and Claude went to work with the saw when all the legs were severed Burt arranged them carefully in a row Claude stepped back to survey the results ski one question Mr Romans 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 Maurice eights or Austin sevens well the legs is all he wants Roman 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 Mr Romans Claude said patiently you know damn well he's gonna 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 with it yeah fair enough Ramin said but fetch the ax it was hard work and it took several minutes before Claude had the whole thing more or less smashed to pieces I'll tell you one thing he said straightening up and wiping his brow that was a bloody good Carpenter put this job together and I don't care what the person says we're just in time Roman's called out here he comes that's the end of the story Okay 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 in my own words right in maybe slightly more simple English so we start with bogus he's an antiques dealer you know what an antiques dealer is now and bogus has 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 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 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 of antique furniture he just sort of mutters something oh it's 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 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 give to people who lie or trick people deceive people in order to get profit um and sometimes commit crimes you know so what's 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 the olden days cars would overheat quite easily and you had to like fill them back up with water uh 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 who had no idea of their real value so bogus 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 bogus then decided that there might be lots of other valuable antique items in other old homes in the country so this was his plan that he could um 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 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 uh valuable items and he created a false identity for himself pretending to work for an organization associated with the Victorian the the the Victoria and Albert Museum which is a famous museum in London full of you know interesting old items including some you know Priceless uh furniture and stuff so he pretended to work for the Victoria and Albert Museum as part of a society for that was it the Royal Society for the preservation of antique furniture or something he decided that people would not be suspicious of him if he also dressed as a pastor Pastor Parson Parson Pastor you think what spaghetti no not that no a pastor is another sin on him for a person vicar clergyman priest anyway he decided that if he dressed as a person people would not suspect him people would think he was harmless and they would trust him this was his plan and and this worked very well and one day he visited a farmhouse in the countryside or one day as we 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 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 and the the farmers the people in the the house notice something and are you all right and he 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 um stunned at having seen a Chip and Dale commode as I said at the beginning of the episode These Days one 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 Sotheby's in London in 2010 for 3.7 million pounds that's how much a chip and Delco mode can be sold for today I mean that's a lot that's a lot of money um now bogus couldn't believe his eyes when he saw it it was there in The Farmhouse The Farmhouse was quite messy um dirty old place and in fact the The Chippendale commode was just in the corner of the room covered in white paint someone had painted it white but he couldn't believe his 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 Mr Romans believe that he didn't really need it it made him believe that it wasn't really worth very much and that he could easily just leave without paying the guy some money as far as Mr Romans is concerned getting 20 pounds 10 pounds 15 20 um you know 50 pounds that's all good that's all better than nothing as far as Romans is concerned so bogus told the owner that the chest of drawers 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 he said could be used as firewood after some negotiation the owner agreed to sell it for 20 pounds thinking he was getting a good price in reality it was only a tiny fraction of the real value of the chest of drawers and bogus was secretly delighted and went to his car right uh the car by the way is also an important part of this because bogus actually drives a station wagon station wagon is basically a kind of an estate 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 antiques dealer might drive because it would allow him to put lots of furniture in the back these days that would be a van really but in in the 1950s um a um what did it 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 bogus parked his car away from the house because he didn't want people to see his car because they because it would spoil the illusion that he was a person 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 uh he could hardly believe his luck um but while he was gone the farmers decided that they should make sure bogus could fit the chest of drawers into the car because they thought that he's a person 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 in into his car so they decided that they would um they would do something so that he wouldn't try to lower the price any further right bogus 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 a total tragedy this is an original Chip and Dale commode and they're just going at it with a saw cutting the legs off then assuming that bogus would have a small car as I said they thought it would be best to smash up the rest of the table with an ax just smash it to bits just to be sure it would fit in the car after all bogus 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 ax and we can only imagine how horrified bogus was when he returned with 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 Romans and the other guys going oh I think we did a good job there removing the legs and uh Bert laid them out nice and carefully on the floor for bogus and then they smashed up the rest of the commode and left it in pieces and they were like I think we've done well here and look here he comes now so the what happens next is left up to our imagination so what do you think happened next what was bogus's reaction to this 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 have made it so much worse for him he would have had to try to contain his reaction because after all he told Romans 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 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 or the pressure of trying to maintain his front to maintain the image of the person who just wanted some legs and some firewood the pressure of that plus the sheer Devastation of seeing 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 in the end okay a floor is like a an imperfection in someone's character okay so um here are some thoughts and comments before uh I go through the story again and maybe just highlight some bits of language so this is a story about the dangers of greed selfishness dishonesty fraud and arrogance fraud is a crime essentially and it involves um deception and and profit so if you lie and you gain profit as a result that's a kind of fraud so for example if you uh pretend to to to to be someone that you're not or if you um maybe if you if you are an art dealer and you create a fake um painting so you make a painting that looks exactly like a van Gogh or a Picasso or something and it's not a genuine um 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 um writing um your accounts um wrong so um false accounting for example declaring uh 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 that's all fraud as well so bogus got what he deserved didn't he ultimately the precious commode is destroyed because of bogus's greed um in order to get the lowest price possible bogus convinces Romans that he only wants the legs but this wasn't necessary this chest of drawers is worth over half a million pounds in today's money bogus could have offered Romans a five percent um bogus could have offered Romans five percent of that price and Romans would definitely still have accepted right what's five percent of of half a million I don't know really but um bogus's greed led him to try to get the lowest possible price he's trying to negotiate down to 0.001 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 uh bogus he could easily have given Romans five percent not 0.001 and he would still Romans would definitely have accepted that and um 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 um 95 profit right but bogus was greedy he wanted the absolutely lowest price possible as a result through an ironic chain of events the table was destroyed table chest of drawers let's call it a chest bogus bogus 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 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 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 bogus 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 bogus car bogus'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 bogus had just gone in and negotiated fairly without lying without pretending to be a person he probably would still have got the commode albeit at a higher price uh and they wouldn't have removed the legs or smashed it to pieces now bogus is certainly very clever and his deception is quite brilliant in fact his whole 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 um I've been going for about 50 minutes I'll do some of the vocab I'm not suggesting I'm going to do the entire story but let's go let's let's have a look at what we can do Mr Bogus stop the car just short of the summit got out and looked around so the summit means the top of a hill it 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 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 all right it's like okay medium Farmhouse over there Beyond it meaning here's the Farmhouse and 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 a particular type of house built in a certain period a certain style there was a Queen Anne and there were like there 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 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 um in English History a certain Style Georgian houses are normally quite large quite Grand looking houses um and he said and the book says he ruled out the latter the latter when you when you're listing things the latter is the last in the 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 former is the previous one and the latter is the one mentioned after see all right so for example if um um oops so if I say would you like um the English tea uh or the Japanese tea and you say oh I'll choose the latter that means the Japanese tea the English tea or the Japanese tea uh I'll choose the former that's the the English tea although it's fairly formal language so we don't normally use it for choosing tea but there you go that's what that means so he ruled out the latter if you ruled 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 is another way of saying Rich wealthy so this Georgian house looked prosperous it looked like it was owned by Rich uh wealthy people and and there was no point in calling on the prosperous so there's 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 because what bogus 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 just ended up there without the owners really knowing the True Value so bogus is targeting poor and less educated people which again is um which again is pretty pretty mean um pretty uh which again is pretty despicable Behavior by bogus targeting people who you know who don't know any better um apart from the fact that he was at this moment disguised as a clergyman there was nothing very Sinister about Cyril bogus so there was nothing very Sinister I mean he he seemed to be uh fairly harmless looking person really um except for the fact he was disguised other than that there wasn't really anything very scary or dangerous about him by trade a dealer in antique furniture with a shop in the King's Road Chelsea bogus 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 bogus where do you get these items what's your secret and boggy says oh just never you mind and some for some reason in in our culture we we point and tap our nose ah just My Little Secret you tap your nose like that when you are mentioned when you're talking about a little secret that you've got ah never you mind little wink a little secret of mine now bogus's little secret was the result of what bogus's little secret was a result of something that happened on a Sunday afternoon nearly nine years before this is how he first got the idea while he was driving in the country's 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 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 word is very common in England it's good for making Furniture a good solid wood the 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 are designed with flowers on it very delicately made um probably with 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 17th century so he instantly identified that this item was late 17th century that's 1690 something 1680 something yeah valuable he poked his head in further so he put his head in the doorway a little further and 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 worth at least a thousand pounds up in London so that would be about 30 000 pounds by today's money not bad you could buy yourself a car a pretty pretty good one when the woman of the house returned bogus asked if she would like to sell her chairs right would you be interested in selling those two chairs and she said they weren't for sale but just out of curiosity how much would he give so 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 in the end of course bogus got the chairs for less than a 20th of their value so whatever that is 30 000 divided by 20. 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 his station wagon bogus 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 you know use to make your hair look all neat and tidy or not maybe in my case but comb your hair it's kind of thin with teeth not a brush but uh um 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 farm houses the dilapidated country Mansions dilapidated means it's kind of old worn down um 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 so the isolated places the farm houses the dilapidated country Mansions would be his Target But Country folk country people are a suspicious lot like 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 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 bogus ordered a large quantity of superior cards so these are like you know cards with um little uh messages engraved on them sort of business cards um with the following Legend engraved a legend is is basically a you know sort of um words that would be printed on a card right um the Reverend Cyril Winnington bogus Reverend is a again another whoops another word referring to um uh clergyman um the Reverend civil Winnington bogus it's 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 he became at the end of the story when he inadvertently um prevented this uh rare bit of furniture from existing didn't he he had it destroyed um unintentionally in association with the Victoria and Albert Museum so a complete lie um he is not president of this Society the society doesn't exist from now 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 the the you're trying to achieve something just because you love it so 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 making a list comparing 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 another Sunday bogus 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 clergymen 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 had nothing of value in there the next stop no one was home for the third Farmhouse the third place of Farmhouse was back in the fields so we had to walk through the fields to get to the house it looked rambling and dirty uh rambling means that well a bit like you can 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 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 well 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 I don't hold out much hope for this place three men were standing in the yard that's the space at the back of the house when they caught sight of the small pot-bellied man in his black suit and Parson's collar they stopped talking uh pot bellied if you've got a pot belly it means you've got a round belly like a fat stomach okay a round pot belly maybe you'd get one from drinking too much beer Potbelly so this is a description of bogus he was small he had a pot belly and they when they saw this man this small pot bellied man in his black suit and Parsons collar they stopped talking and watched him suspiciously hmm which country folk can do sometimes the farm owner was a Stumpy man so that's short with small Shifty eyes if you have Shifty eyes it means your eyes move around maybe suspiciously hmm what do you want eh the tall youth that's young person beside him was his son Bert a short man with broad shoulders was clawed a neighbor broad means wide and what exactly might you be wanting Romans asked so he speaks a bit like you know kind of country person a farmer what what might you be wanting maybe I should push the accent a bit more and what exactly might you be wanting Romans asked bogus explained at some length the aims and ideals of the society for the preservation of rare Furniture he probably put on a bit of an act well I work for the prefer the the society the Royal Society for the uh uh preservation of rare Furniture here's my card it's a it's a labor of love you see I I travel the length and breadth of the country searching for rare items which can be logged in the in an inventory uh 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 um Ramen said we don't have any you're wasting your time unfriendly now just a minute sir boggy said raising a finger the last man who said that to me was an old farmer down in Sussex Sussex is one of a 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 be worth 400 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 bogus knows who he's talking to that this is the sort of thing that Romans would be interested in of course a new tractor would be very important for him Romans shifted uneasily on his feet so he 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 in you taking a look there's no harm it couldn't hurt if you just took it took a look 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 bogus saw it at once and gasped that's to gasp he stood staring for 10 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 just 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 be true at that point bogus 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 bogus staggered to the nearest chair and collapsed into it Breathing heavily what's the matter Claude asked oh it's it's it's nothing he cast I'll be all right in a minute I thought maybe you were looking at something Ramin said no no boggy said it's just my heart it happens every now and then I'll be all right every now and then meaning sometimes all right he must have time to think he told himself take it gently bogus 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 a normal person who's not doesn't have specialist knowledge okay so if you in in in the world of science you have Specialists you understand about certain you know chemistry or physics or biology or whatever um but I I'm not a specialist so I'm just a Layman right also in law you've got lawyers who understand all the legal terms they understand the law and everything and then ordinary people who haven't studied law we are just lay men or lay people so a lay person is someone who doesn't have specialist knowledge in a certain area just ordinary person so to a Layman what he'd seen might not have appeared particularly impressive covered 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 bogus knew that among the most coveted examples of 18th century English Furniture are three pieces known as The Chippendale commodes if something is Coveted it means it's desired and everyone wants to have it okay the among the most coveted examples of 18th century English Furniture are three pieces only three The Chippendale commodes maybe there are more Chippendale commodes than three maybe this is the fourth I don't know a trifle unsteadily a TR if some 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 for example if you if you do something unsteadily it means maybe your legs are a bit wobbly and uh you might you know you might fall again because remember bogus 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 bogus began to move around the room examining the other Furniture 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 drawers bogus walked casually past the commode worth a few pounds I dare say I dare say is like saying 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 a table it would be a very crude table it'd just be like right piece of wood legs Bang Bang there there it is and the table's unsteady wobbles my crude carpentry skills accrued 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 it very badly very crudely that's a strong bit of furniture Ramen 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 you can carve a desire carve some designs on uh on a piece of furniture okay nice carving said Romans machine carved bogus replied bending down to examine the Exquisite craftsmanship Exquisite means wonderful excellent he began to saunter off if you saunter as you kind of walk in a casual kind of way he began to saunter off frowning as if in deep thought what's he said looking back at the commode so this is all part of his act he's pretending not to care about it we'll Resort her off and then turn back oh 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 movers damaged the legs I'm very fond of that table he's fond of the table he has at home means he likes it a lot he's you know he feels attached to it he likes it he's fond of it so he's got a table at home and the legs have been damaged by some movers some people who moved the 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 these legs on your chest of drawers could be cut off and fixed onto my table and Romans has been caught by this trick right Romans is it's it's clever because uh bogus is is essentially encouraging Romans to take initiative to now Romans wants bogus to buy it right Romans is like uh bogus is not concerned but Romans 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 Roman says what you mean to say is that you'd like to buy it well it might be were might be a bit too much trouble no it's not worth it how much were you thinking of offering how much were you thinking of offering Romans 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 Raman said it's been in here over 20 years I bought it at the manor house when the old Squire died so the manor house would be the house owned by the uh maybe the the Aristocrat or the sort of the the um the the Lord of that area would have would own the manor house the rich person of the area uh the old Squire that's probably when the the owner of the house the owner of the land when he died um so so Romans bought it from the manor house the man house would be like Downton Abbey or something like that I bought it from the manor house when 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 antiques dealer 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 again adds more value to the proper to the property note to the item property would be a house or something but we're talking about furniture okay so that would more add more value to the furniture if there's actually a bill and there is one for this chipper Delco mode and Bert says you what you mean this and he lifted out a piece of folded yellowing paper right a piece of sort of yellowing so the paper is 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 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 Roman said holding the paper out to bogus and bogus is again I can't believe his eyes that there's actual a real bill of sale that goes along with this thing an original one and bogus his arm is shaking as he takes it um um and it was brittle so if paper is brittle it means it's very old and it breaks easily so it's definitely the original bill it was brittle and it cracked slightly between his fingers so it's old it's the original one the writing was in Long sloping copper plate hand um this means the handwriting so the the note is written in handwriting in a sloping style so that's a very old-fashioned uh style of handwriting and probably bogus would identify it and would know that this comes from the 18th century and the the the the uh the note is written in sort of Fairly old-fashioned language Edward Montague Esquire deter to those Chippendale thus very old-fashioned we wouldn't say that these days you know this is clearly original maybe from the 18th century a large mahogany commode table of exceeding fine wood very rich carved the spelling of carved c-a-r-v-d not e d c a r v-d so not e d not v e d which again shows that this is from centuries ago set upon fluted legs two very neat shaped long drawers anyway so the note is original bogus was fighting to suppress his excitement trying to suppress excitement is keep it down so he's obviously whoa this is the real thing but he has to okay just keep suppress 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 get if he sold it now maybe twelve thousand pounds 14 maybe 15 or even 20 000 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 2023 would be worth even more than that I mean as we know one got sold in 2010 for nearly four million so it wouldn't be surprised if if it went for about 5 million or something now um anyway he tossed the paper contemptuously on the table um if you have contempt for something it means you you don't give it any respect at all you think it's worthless he tossed the note contemptuously on the table no it's exactly what I thought a Victorian reproduction okay so the victorians okay uh people who are around during the reign of Queen Victoria at the end of the 19th century they did a lot of reproductions a lot of copying they copied um things like furniture and architecture from previous periods and uh sometimes they did it kind of badly as well um right in that sort of modern period a lot of stuff would have been copied and done quite quickly maybe using machines and as a result those copies would have been worthless so oh just no it's a Victorian reproduction this is simply the invoice that the seller gave to his clients listen Parson Ramin said how can you be so sure it's fake you haven't seen it underneath all that paint has anyone got a knife asked bogus Claude produced a pocket knife and bogus with apparent casualness so again he's pretending to be all casual like he doesn't care he chipped off paint from a smaller area on top of the commode take a look but it was beautiful the the original wood underneath was beautiful a warm little patch of mahogany a very valuable hardwood glowing like a topaz rich and dark with the true color of its 200 years oh what's wrong with it ramens asked it's process is lying of course without the slightest doubt this wood has been processed with lime now I don't really know what that means either what can would be processed I suppose if wood is processed with lime it means it's people have you someone's used lime on the wood to protect the wood or something maybe to make cheap wood look like more expensive wood you'd 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 um a kind of mineral like chalk okay um an alkaline mineral um how much would you give uh in Roman's accent how much would you give Roman's asked bogus looked at the commode frowned with his you know made an expression with his eyes to make it look like he was thinking or seriously and Shrugged his shoulders like lifted his shoulders up and down I think 10 pounds would be fair okay so it's a very unbelievably low offer um it's about 300 pounds though by today's standards 10 pounds Romans cried so Roman's not Romans 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 10 pounds Roman's cried don't be ridiculous person look at the bill it tells you exactly what it cost 87 pounds now it's antique it's worth double so bogus has got Romans exactly where he wants him where bogus is trying to negotiate for something like 180 pounds when this thing is worth what was it UH 60 I can't remember twenty thousand so bogus has got him where he wants him the the margins here that are being negotiated are all wonderful for bogus and this is just cruel what he's doing it's just mean spirited and greedy to try and negotiate from from that point all the way down to 20 pounds which is what he gets it for originally he could have just said okay fine he could have paid Romans you know 180 pounds and Romans would have been very happy with that right 180 pounds in today's money I don't know but um ramen's gonna use that right but no he's not bogus isn't satisfied with that he wants to push it as far as he can go which is really not not fair at all um and boggy said 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 15 pounds make it 50. Ramen said my dear man bogus said softly it I only want the legs the rest of it is firewood that's all make it 35 Ramen said I couldn't sir I couldn't what a performance I'll make you one final offer 20 pounds I'll take it Ramen snapped oh dear bogus I shouldn't have started this you can't back out now Persona Deal's a deal so Romans is all in here yes yes 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 um load of the furniture onto the car um bogus 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 bogus Keep Calm there's no hurry now the commode is yours back in The Farmhouse Romans was saying fancy him giving me 20 pound 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 oh what a surprise it's amazing isn't it fancy him giving me 20 pounds for a load of junk like this you did very nicely Mr Romans 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 don't put it in the car Tilly 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 bogus is not gonna follow through on the deal they want to make sure that he'll be able to get it in the car so that they'll get their money Romans 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 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'll 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 Ramen said looking at the commode within a couple of minutes Claude and Bert had carried the commode 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 Burt arranged them carefully in a row right Claude stepped back to survey the results survey mean look at the results from a from above just let me ask you one question Mr Rummins he said slowly even now could you put that enormous thing into a car hmm not unless it was a van correct Claude cried and Parsons don't have vans all they've got usually is piddling little Morris eights or Austin sevens 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 bogus's act his act of deception is now working against him in the most satisfying way in this story oh well you know we wouldn't be able to get that in in into his car he's probably got a small car right the legs is all he wants Roman 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 that's true he did say he only wanted the legs now now you know better than that Mr Romans Claude said patiently you know damn well he's gonna 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 with it fire 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 so he can't complain fair enough Ramin said but fetch the ax an ax is a is a large tool that you would use to chop up wood you'd chop a tree down with an ax you swing it and thonk Chop Chop right you chop something up with an ax and you can you can break something to pieces with an ax fetch the ax meaning get the ax it was hard work and it took several minutes hard work because this is this is a 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 the pieces with your with your feet and hands this is a this is a virtually Priceless uh item of furniture so it was very hard work it took them several minutes but they had the whole thing more or less smashed to pieces I'll tell you one thing he said straightening up wiping his brow if you wipe your brow this 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 bloody good Carpenter put this job together and I don't care what the person 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 to put this job together I don't care what the person says because the person has led them to believe it's a crude copy made in the maids you know only a few decades before ah we're just in time Romans called out here he comes and this is where we imagine the person rushing back over with the with the money and the car and to discover his precious chip and Delco mode 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 the that's Parsons pleasure by uh Roald Dahl good story isn't it you can let me know what you think in the comments section uh that's the end of the episode I just wanted to say at the end here that um 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 um and each episode was an adaptation of one of Roald 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 80s 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 I'll add it to the page for this episode on my website you can actually see Roald Dahl the author himself he introduces the episode you see him sitting in a nice leather armchair and he he introduces the the uh the episode and the acting in the performance um is excellent particularly by Sir John gilgood who plays bogus now Sir John gilgood is one of 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 gilgood as bogus and also the other actors are excellent too the farmers and stuff it's really really well done so I highly recommend that you watch that uh TV version of this story as well you'll find the video on the page for this episode on my website um okay but that's it that's it for this episode thank you so much for listening thank you for watching um and I will speak 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