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Cyril Boggis
In “Parson’s Pleasure,” Rummins is the owner of a farm Cyril Boggis visits in Brill. He’s a tough, no-nonsense countryman who, though initially skeptical, is ultimately swayed by Boggis’s skillful lies. Although Rummins believes his antique commode is an original—despite not grasping the full extent of its worth—he ultimately accepts Boggis’s insistence that it’s a worthless copy. In an effort to help Boggis transport it, he, his son Bert, and their neighbor Claud saw off its legs, unwittingly destroying the commode’s value.
Rummins Quotes in The Great Automatic Grammatizator
The The Great Automatic Grammatizator quotes below are all either spoken by Rummins or refer to Rummins. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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1. The Great Automatic Grammatizator Quotes
‘The quality may be inferior, but that doesn’t matter. It’s the cost of production that counts. And stories—well—they’re just another product, like carpets and chairs, and no one cares how you produce them so long as you deliver the goods.’
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This passage from “The Great Automatic Grammatizator” occurs as Adolph Knipe attempts to persuade his boss, John Bohlen, to fund the construction of his advanced storytelling machine. Though Knipe’s assertion that stories are “just another product” reduces writing to a mechanical process, his logic is deeply flawed, as it fails to account for the imaginative quality of human creativity. While he views storytelling as a mathematical formula that can be automated, Dahl presents this mindset as fundamentally dehumanizing—and dangerous. Knipe’s own invention, the Grammatizator, ultimately strips him of his individuality. His transformation from someone who once wrote original stories every Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint
6. Parson’s Pleasure Quotes
He didn’t want the towns and the villages. It was the comparatively isolated places, the large farmhouses and the rather dilapidated country mansions, that he was looking for.
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This passage from “Parson’s Pleasure” explains how antique dealer Cyril Boggis chooses which homes to target for potentially rare and valuable furniture that he can resell at a much steeper price. On Sundays, he poses as a parson and combs the countryside, duping homeowners into allowing him inside under the guise of working for the “Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture.” The fact that Boggis avoids the “towns and villages”—the more urban areas of England—not only suggests that he believes rural homeowners will be more likely to part with their items due to financial need, but also that they Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic tempore laborum. Nisi quia ea
‘And then there’s the patina,’ Mr. Boggis continued.
‘The what?’
He explained to them the meaning of this word as applied to furniture.
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In “Parson’s Pleasure,” antique furniture dealer Cyril Boggis attempts to scam farmer Rummins out of a valuable antique commode by convincing him it is merely an imitation of the real thing. This exchange follows Boggis’s “explanation” of how the commode’s wood has been processed with lime, which cheapens it. A skilled conman, Boggis overwhelms Rummins, Bert, and Claud with increasingly obscure jargon and details about furniture craftsmanship and counterfeiting, assuming they won’t question his supposed expertise. His mention of “patina” is particularly notable—not just in its technical sense, but in what it reveals about Boggis himself and how it functions Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia e
‘I’ll tell you one thing,’ he said, straightening up, wiping his brow. ‘That was a bloody good carpenter put this job together and I don’t care what the parson says.’
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This passage comes at the end of “Parson’s Pleasure,” just after Claud, Bert, and Rummins have severed the legs from Cyril Boggis’s antique commode and chopped the rest of the commode into firewood. Earlier, Boggis—an antique dealer and experienced conman—recognized the commode’s immense value despite its cheap paint job and set out to manipulate the farmers into selling it for next to nothing. He convinced them it was a worthless reproduction, but to further secure the deal, he claimed he only needed the legs and the rest of it was only good “for firewood.” When he leaves to retrieve his Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis
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Rummins Character Timeline in The Great Automatic Grammatizator
The timeline below shows where the character Rummins appears in The Great Automatic Grammatizator. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
6. Parson’s Pleasure
...later. He then moves on to a smaller, dirtier farm, where he encounters three suspicious men—Rummins, the farm’s owner; his one-eyed son, Bert; and their neighbor, Claud—along with two greyhounds at...
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Claud stopped by Rummins’s farm hoping for a piece of the pig Rummins slaughtered the day before—which Claud could...
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Amid a collection of worthless items in Rummins’s house, Boggis stumbles upon a rarity—one of “The Chippendale Commodes,” antique chests of drawers crafted...
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...them to another table—all the while envisioning a potential resale of up to £10,000. But Rummins is skeptical, insisting the piece is old and producing a yellowed invoice that has remained...
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Because Bert had previously coated the commode in white paint, Rummins questions how Boggis could possibly identify it as a reproduction. To maintain his ruse, Boggis...
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