A twelve-year-old steals his parents’ credit card and gets on a plane to Bali.
The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds, by George de la Tour, c. 1635. Louvre Museum, Paris.
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Miscellany
The American English term wooden nutmeg, meaning “anything false or fraudulent,” dates from 1829, when Connecticut traders were known to place fake wooden nutmegs in batches of real ones to defraud customers.
It was the men I deceived the most that I loved the most.
—Marguerite Duras, 1987Lapham’s
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The World in Time
Roland Philipps
Lewis H. Lapham talks with Roland Philipps, author of A Spy Named Orphan: The Enigma of Donald Maclean. More