Page 5 - Lulu and Bob in Verbo City

“I don’t know.” Bob pulled out the note in his pocket. “Maybe it
says something useful on this brochure. Let’s see…sesquipedalians
are words a foot-and-a-half long; taking a letter as an inch, they are all
at least eighteen letters long. They thrive on hot air, same as every
other polysyllabic word. They like to be seen and heard, but are afraid
of being taken out of context—well, we’ve certainly done that! Ah,
here’s something useful: if a sesquipedalian gets loose, it will head for
whatever object it relates to or describes, finding some comfort in a
merely symbolic relationship.”
“Is that all?” Lulu lunged at the sheet of paper in Bob’s hand, but
he dodged her.
“No. Let me go back to the handling instructions. They’ve got to
be kept warm. That means we’ll have to heat the house to the same
temperature as the linguarium, eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit.” Lulu
dashed to the thermostat and cranked it up. “And once we find a
sesquipedalian, here is how to pick it up: grasp its last syllable, on a
consonant (do not squeeze a vowel) and peel it up toward the front;
the last syllable is the weakest, consisting usually of a suffix. Doesn’t
say anything about tweezers. Can you remember their font size?”
She scowled. “I think it varies, but some are as small as 6-point.
Listen: we didn’t pick up just a random selection of these critters:
they were already in the bag when we got there. Uncle Bunster must
have phoned in the order: if we can find out what they are it will
make our search a whole lot easier.”
“Great idea!” said Bob, and they ran to the telephone in the study.

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