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He was like the Great Santini of the Strand. Few people could take him on; he was so well-read and had a memory that could retain every detail of everything he’d ever read, as well as jokes, lyrics, arias, names of store owners he’d met on his honeymoon in Paris, names of restaurants where gangsters were gunned down in 1924. He could quote lines from books he disliked better than you could quote lines from what you claimed was your favorite book of all time.
