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| Black as a cave mouth. | 1 |
| Boring in and out … like a stubby needle going through a tuck. | 2 |
| Casually, like John Drew counting up the house. | 3 |
| Comfortable as an anvil. | 4 |
| Curled up like a blue racer in a partridge nest. | 5 |
| Determined aspect like the iron jawed lady in a circus. | 6 |
| Dimpling like a maiden’s cheek. | 7 |
| A little rounded excrescence like a steel wart. | 8 |
| His face looked like a face that had refused to jell and was about to run down on his clothes. | 9 |
| Nature meant that a fat man should have an appetite and that he should gratify it at regular intervals—meant that he should feel like the Grand Canyon before dinner and the Royal Gorge afterward. | 10 |
| Festered like buried thorns in the flesh. | 11 |
| Flat as a fillet of sole. | 12 |
| Fleshless as a joint of cane. | 13 |
| Folds up like a crush hat or a concertina. | 14 |
| Misty gray, like a cow’s breath on a frosty morning. | 15 |
| Hysterical as a tree full of chickens. | 16 |
| Intermittently, like the click of a blind man’s cane. | 17 |
| Jingle … like rattling handcuffs. | 18 |
| Mixed together like jackstraws. | 19 |
| Make noises like a drunken Zulu trying to sing a Swedish folk song. | 20 |
| As nude as a raw oyster. | 21 |
| Overflowing like a crock of salt-rising dough in a warm kitchen. | 22 |
| No more privacy than a goldfish. | 23 |
| Reverential, as though he were handling sacred vessels. | 24 |
| Sags like a fisherman’s hat. | 25 |
| Scuttle off … like a brace of teal ducks getting out of a walrus’ way. | 26 |
| Her jaw was set like a steel latch. | 27 |
| Door slam like the smacking of an iron lip. | 28 |
| Looked at it and sniffed at it daintily—like a reluctant patient going under the ether. | 29 |
| Sore as a mashed thumb. | 30 |
| Spattering off in a steady stream, like a buck-shot spilling from a canister. | 31 |
| Splotched like a brandy drunkard’s face with red stains. | 32 |
| Spouting like a sperm-whale. | 33 |
| Braced and steady, like a game man facing a firing squad. | 34 |
| Teeth chattering like a Morse sounder. | 35 |
| Left a taste in his mouth like a tin-type factory. | 36 |
| Dressed in white—all white, like a bride or a bandaged thumb. | 37 |
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