harebag cops (pg. 297) -- A bag for putting dead rabbit into? A picture at a Hash-related blog: http://pwoodford.net/hashblog/?p=1357
...backset of the RMP... -- (pg. 2) Just what RMP (Radio Motor Patrol car) stands for is not explained until page 207!
This is a gorge you're looking at (pg. 161) -- Near as I can figure, the highest point around here is 50 feet high. Quibbler as I am, that's not much of a gorge to me.
As usual, interesting history stuff, including the High Bridge over the Harlem River.
on the hustings (pg. 248)-- The activities involved in political campaigning.
A TON of interesting historical stuff about New York and the New York Public Library is in here. I learned a bunch of stuff. Many of the locations can be viewed in Google Street View.
In an email query to the NYPL I found out that the call numbers in the research libraries are unique for each item, pretty much, and so the question on page 144, "So how does the clerk know which copy of Alice In Wonderland to fetch?", probably could have been answered by "The call number from the catalog".
deaccession (pg. 82) -- To sell or otherwise dispose of an item in a collection.
welsh (pg. 117) -- To avoid payment.
faites comme chez vous (pg. 121) -- Make yourself at home.
puttanesca sauce (pg. 123) -- The word puttanesca is derived from puttana, a colloquial term for 'prostitute.'
exsanguination (pg. 127) -- To be drained of blood.
hondel (pg. 221) -- Yiddish, to bargain.
À tout a l'heure, ma princesse (pg. 265) -- See you soon, my princess.
profiterole (pg. 275) -- A cream puff.
whole magilla (pg. 357) -- Derived from the Hebrew word Megillah, a word for scroll, it now means "the whole thing, all that can be expected".
"You can't close the public library."
"faster than you can say Dewey decimal system, lady."
ratiocination (pg. 287) -- The process of exact thinking.
buried the lede (pg. 338) -- The introductory section of a news story that is intended to entice the reader to read the full story.
Penikese Island (pg. 340) -- Looked it up on Google Maps to see what it looks like.
On page 349 Mike says, "You got a gun I can borrow for an hour or two?"
On page 359 Mike draws his Glock.
On page 358 Alex is wearing moccasins. Moccasins?
faience carving of the Sphinx (pg. 75) A type of tin-glazed earthenware ceramic.
Some notes I made:
Various kinds of horse-drawn vehicles mentioned on page 195:
brougham A light, four-wheeled horse-drawn carriage
surrey (with a fringe!) A horse-drawn, four-wheeled, two-seated pleasure carriage with an open spindle seat.
two-wheeled cart It's a two-wheeled cart, for cryin' out loud!
victoria The victoria was an elegant French carriage.
pony cart Seems to be a smaller cart. Can have two or four wheels.
tally-ho (coach and four) A four-in-hand (the Tally-ho was the name of a coach that once plied between London and Birmingham)
A Chronology And An Observation
Dirk was nine when his father died. see page 133. I figure this was 1900.
Selina and Dirk ride in a red automobile back to the farm after the trip to Chicago to sell vegetables after the father died. See page 162. Again, I figure this was 1900.
Dirk starts college in 1909. See page 179. He is eighteen or nineteen, by my figuring.
Dirk graduates college in 1913 when he is twenty-two years old. See page 199.
There were only 2,475 automobiles built in the United States during 1899-1901. It seems fortuitous that Selina and Dirk got to in that red automobile.<
matutinal bathing (pg. 36) -- Pertaining to or occurring in the morning.
none too knowledgeous herself (pg. 53) -- I think it means "knowledgeable".
always a dado of washing (pg. 118) -- Cannot find a suitible definition.
the Cinderellas and the Smikes of this temple (pg. 180) -- A charactor in Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby.
bosky paths (pg. 205) -- Covered with or consisting of bushes or thickets.
Do you suppose they will ever get rid of this terrible Rush Street bridge? (pg. 210) -- Yes, around 1920 they tore the sucker down!
Their eyes were wide apart, empty, knowledgeous.. (pg. 239) -- There is that word again! Still not much on the web!
their names were burbankian monstrosities...hence Loretta, Imogene, Nadine (pg. 241) -- I get the Luther Burbank reference, but not how it applies to these particular names. Marjon, from parents Mary and John, that I understand. I wonder what the author would think of the girl's name Howard Allen O'Brien?
with pompons on them (pg. 255) -- Yes, that IS how it is spelled.
meet the gamin of the rumpled smock (pg. 259) -- An often homeless boy who roams about the streets; an urchin.
Sairey Gamipish ladies smelling unpleasantly of peppermint and perspiration and poverty (pg. 267) -- Sairey Gamp is a charactor in Charles Dickens' Martin Chuzzlewit.
Sped by one of those over-dramatic ladies who, armed with horsewhip or pistol in tardy defence of their honour, ... it had been meant for a well-known newspaper publisher usually mentioned ... as a bonvivant. The lady's leaden remonstrance was to have been proof of the fact that he had been more vivacious than bon. (pg. 19)
and a cubby-hole for the Jap. (pg. 242) -- nice.