Page:Farmer - Slang and its analogues past and present - Volume 1.pdf/77

 head'); avoir une grenouille dans l'aquarium (popular: lit: 'to have a frog in one's aquarium'); avoir une hirondelle dans le soliveau (popular: 'to have a swallow in the head'); avoir une Marseillaise dans le Kiosque (popular); avoir une punaise dans le soufflet (popular: 'to have a bug in one's brain'); avoir une sardine dans l'armoire à glace (popular: 'to have a sardine in the head or brain.' Armoire à glace = the head); avoir une trichinne dans le jambonneau (popular: jambonneau, the head); avoir une sauterelle dans la guitare (popular: lit. 'to have a grasshopper in the guitar').

For other synonyms, see Tile loose.

2. A widow is said to have apartments to let.

Ape-leader, subs. (old).--An old maid. Leading apes in hell was the employment jocularly assigned to those who neglected to assume marital functions while living.

1581. Lyly, Euphucs (Arb.), 87. Rather thou shouldest leade a lyfe to thine owne lyking in earthe, than ... leade apes in hell. [m.]

1605. Lond. Prodigal, I., 2. 'Tes an old proverb, and you know it well, that women dying maids lead apes in hell.

1717. Mrs. Centlivre, Bold Stroke, II., 1. Poor girl; she must certainly lead apes, as the saying is.

1880. General P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), I., 198. Joining with other old women, in leading their apes in Tartarus. [m.]

There are several proverbial sayings in which the ape plays an important part. To say an ape's paternoster is to chatter with cold; this corresponds with the French, dire des patenôtres de singe. To put an ape into one's hood or cap, to make a fool of one, etc.

Apes, subs. (Stock Exchange).--Atlantic and North-Western Railway first mortgage bonds.

Apostles, or The Twelve Apostles, subs. phr. (Cambridge Univ.).--Formerly, when the Poll, or ordinary B.A. degree list was arranged in order of merit, the last twelve were nicknamed The Twelve Apostles. They were also called The Chosen Twelve, and the last, St. Poll or St. Paul--a punning allusion to 1 Cor. xv., 9, 'For I am the least of the Apostles, that am not meet to be called an Apostle.' The list is now arranged alphabetically and in classes. Hotten suggests that Apostles is a corruption of post alios, i.e., 'after the others.' It may perhaps also be mentioned that in one American University at least, Columbia College, D.C., the last twelve on the B.A. list actually receive the personal names of the Apostles.

1795. Gentleman's Magazine, Jan., p. 19. [The last twelve names on the Cambridge list are here called The Twelve Apostles.]

Manœuvering the Apostles, a variant of the familiar expression, 'to rob Peter to pay Paul'; i.e., to borrow from one person to pay another.

Apostle's Grove, subs. (common).--The London district known as St. John's Wood. Also called grove of the evangelist. Both names are applied sarcastically in allusion to the large numbers of the demi-*