word of the day: purler
Miss Bianca and Bernard of the Mouse Prisoners’ Aid Society are very good friends, but one gets the sense Bernard wishes they were more than just friends. Still, he considers her above his station, and is too shy to hint that they could be more intimate.
The bus they are taking pulls up to a curb.
Tripping down beside [Bernard] at the stop opposite the Embassy [where the mice live], [Miss Bianca] lightly brushed his whiskers with her own — which so acted upon his sensibilities, he got off on the wrong foot and took a purler, but fortunately there wasn’t much traffic about.
definition (lexico): informal British. a headlong fall
source:
Miss Bianca in the Antarctic
by Margery Sharp
illustrated by Erik Blegveld
1971. Little, Brown & Co., Boston MA
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