"Truly I tell you, went one of his jokes, when it first happened I used to think of it as my crippletude. Then time went on, and I started to call it my crippleness. And now, and here his hand would leave the glass, or the knee it had been rubbing until then, would roll into a fist and saunter on the table, in vibrant expectation of the banging to come, and now, ha, ha, ha, I've settled comfortably well in my crippledom."
As I was saying