"Is that so," he said, suppressing the urge to go boil his hands for a few hours. "I'm surprised if it hasn't burned a hole in its shelf." Instead he put them in his pockets, the Barsoom book still under one arm.

"What would the rules be? Take a shot every time gamahuching is mentioned? Or for every run-on sentence? You'd drink yourself into stupor before the first chapter was done." He gave Aziraphale a quick, slightly rueful look when he said this. The morning after the karaoke night was spent facedown in a pillow delaying healing away the hangover, which did not so much get rid of it but condense it into five seconds of dry-mouthed head-pounding nausea. Not that it hurt, but still.