crushed aspirins or oil of cloves home remedies applied to an aching tooth or gum.
R.O.T.C. Reserve Officers' Training Corps, a military body which demands exacting posture and decorum.
epizootic an epidemic within a herd of animals.
crocus sack a burlap bag, often called a "croker sack" or a "gunny sack."
peckerwood worthless, untrustworthy riffraff.
Claude Rains, Herbert Marshall and George McCready three significant screen actors of the 1930s and 40s. Rains (1889-1967) earned fame early in his career for his performances in The Invisible Man, Notorious,Robin Hood, The Prince and the Pauper, and Casablanca. Herbert Marshall (1890-1966), an urbane British leading man who lost a leg in World War I, starred in I Was a Spy, The Dark Angel, A Bill of Divorcement, and The Little Foxes. George McCready (1909-73) left banking to act in Gilda, Paths of Glory, and Commandos Strike at Dawn.
D'Artagnan one of the heroes of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers.
"The Fall of the House of Usher" one of Edgar Allan Poe's most dismal tales of horror, which features the theme of premature burial.
"blows and scores" ago that is, after a protracted history of assaults and retaliations.
djinn a spirit, or jinni of Muslim lore which, like the supernatural servant in Aladdin's lamp, can be summoned to assist humans.
