The subject is as familiar and as well known to me, as are my fingers; to be perfectly conversant with a business, or to have it, as we say, "at our fingers' ends."

He is as proud of the transaction, as if he had despoiled a Grecian warrior of his shield. The Greeks and Romans defended their shields with the greatest pertinacity, it being held in the highest degree dishonourable to suffer them to be taken from them. The adage was used to be applied to persons boasting of some insignificant exploit, and magnifying it, as if they had saved a friend, or their country from destruction.

It is a subject I am as well acquainted with, as I am with my own name, or with my fingers, was used to be said to persons repeating any well known story or circumstance.

«Totis diebus, Afer, hæc mihi narras,
Et teneo melius ista, quam meum nomen».

You are perpetually teasing me with a repetition of this story, which is as familiar to me as my own name.

He is like a cork, nothing will depress or sink him, was used to be said of persons who had passed through great trials, or escaped from imminent danger without mischief. Of such men we say, like a cat he has nine lives, or throw him as you will he will be sure to alight upon his feet, give a man luck and throw him into the sea.