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ALSO NOT A CHAPTER
At this point, the history of the Baudelaire orphans reverts to its sequential format, and if you are interested in finishing the story, you should read the chapters in the order in which they appear, although I dearly hope you are not interested in finishing the story, any more than the story is interested in finishing you.
CHAPTER Seven
Quite a few things happened that day after the clock struck three and each Wrong! echoed throughout the immense and perplexing world of the Hotel Denouement. On the ninth story, a woman was suddenly recognized by a chemist, into a walkie-talkie. On the sixth story, one of the was reported by an ambidextrous man who spoke and the two of them had a fit of giggles. In the basement, a strange sight housekeepers removed a disguise, and drilled a hole behind an ornamental vase in order to examine the cables that held one of the elevators in place, while listening to the faint sound of a very a
Finally, just as either Frank or Ernest had predicted, night arrived and the hotel grew very quiet, and the three siblings gathered behind the large, wooden desk to talk, leaning their backs against the wall and stretching out their legs until their feet almost touched the bells. Violet told the story of Esme Squalor, Carmelita Spats, and Geraldine Julie
"It just doesn't make any sense," Violet said. "Why is Esme Squalor pla
"Why are Sir and Charles here?" Klaus asked. "Why is there birdpaper hanging out of the window of the sauna?"
"Why Nero?" Su
"Who is J. S.?" Violet asked. "Is he a man lurking in the basement, or is she a woman watching the skies?"
"Where is Count Olaf?" Klaus asked. "Why has he invited so many of our former guardians here to the hotel?"
"Frankernest," Su
"Kit said that all would not go well," Violet said. "She said our errands may be noble, but that we would not succeed."
"That's true," agreed Klaus. "She said all our hopes would go up in smoke, and maybe she was right. We each observed a different story, but none of the stories makes any sense."
"Elephant," Su
Violet and Klaus looked at their sister curiously.
"Poem," she said. "Father."
Violet and Klaus looked at one another in puzzlement.
"Elephant," Su
The name John Godfrey Saxe is not likely to mean anything to you, unless you are a fan of American humorist poets of the nineteenth century. There are not many such people in the world, but the Baudelaires' father was one of them, and had several poems committed to memory. From time to time he would get into a whimsical mood-the word "whimsical," as you probably know, means "odd and impulsive"-and would grab the nearest Baudelaire child, bounce him or her up and down on his lap, and recite a poem by John Godfrey Saxe about an elephant. In the poem, six blind men encountered an elephant for the first time and were unable to agree on what the animal was like. The first man felt the tall, smooth side of the elephant, and concluded that an elephant was like a wall. The second man felt the tusk of the elephant, and decided that an elephant resembled a spear. The third man felt the trunk of the elephant, and the fourth felt one of the elephant's legs, and so on and so on, with all of the blind men bickering over what an elephant is like. As with many children, Violet and Klaus had grown old enough to find their father's whimsical moods a little embarrassing, so Su