bit-and-brace

Updated: June 9, 2025

And having got it into place, and lowered by a screw, the cushions intended to receive his head, and got the lethargic trunk and skull of the Artillery doctor well-placed for his purpose, he took out a roll of sticking-plaster and a great piece of lint, and laid them on the table, and unlocked his box, which was a large one, and took out several instruments, silver-mounted, straight and crooked, with awful adaptations to unknown butcheries and tortures, and then out came another the veritable trepan resembling the homely bit-and-brace, but slender, sinister, and quaint, with a murderous sort of elegance.

Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu - The House by the Church-Yard