"Close, but no cigar."

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:47 AM -0400 4/7/11, victor steinbok wrote:
>http://goo.gl/wliZD
>Daniel Deronda. Volume 3. By George Elliot. 1876
>p. 38
>>  "You had better take my arm," he said, in his low tone of command;
>>and she took it.
>>  "It's a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar,"
>>said Grandcourt.
>>  "I thought you would like it."
>
>This has a dual exception of being earlier than Coney Island carnivals
>and being English. Of course, there could be a perfectly innocuous
>explanation for this. But "carnival prize" ain't it.
>
Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.

LH

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