Mad or Bad

Staying with the theme of a recent post, antiques dealers are an interesting lot. Years ago I’d often chat with Nic, an elderly bookseller from Nottingham who once gave me an unbound three volume set of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary from the 1820s. Published long after old Sam’s death of course, but his dictionary was reprinted and used for decades afterwards. When bound it was a handsome set.

A few decades ago, Mrs H and I were wandering around an antiques fair when we came across a dealer selling what looked like rather ordinary aneroid barometers. Antique, but not particularly old and still very common barometers supposedly acquired from stately homes such as Chatsworth. It seemed rather odd, but dealers can be a rum lot.

Later I had a chat with Nic at the same antiques fair when he suddenly asked me if I’d seen the barometer dealer. I said I had. “He’d mad you know,” Nic said, “quite mad. Says his barometers have come from stately homes – have you read the labels on them? He’s quite mad.”

Mad or bad, it’s often difficult to decide, but Nic preferred mad.