A notoriously absent-minded professor was one day observed walking along the street with one foot continually in the gutter, the other on the pavement.
They were, to be honest, what I might have come up with myself after a few seconds of thought, or what I might expect to encounter in a B- term paper from a distracted undergraduate.
A suspended interest and a prevalent absence of mind, were perhaps observed by the spies who looked in at the wine-shop, as they looked in at every place, high and low, from the king’s palace to the criminal’s gaol.