or -loft, -works, etc., subs. phr. (common).—The head, brain (GROSE). Hence UNFURNISHED (SOMETHING WRONG, or RATS) IN THE UPPER-STOREY = crazy, demented, ignorant, OFF ONE’S CHUMP (q.v.), drunk.
1751. SMOLLETT, Peregrine Pickle, vi. I’d have you take care of your UPPER WORKS. Ibid. (1771), The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1900), i. 180. What you imagine to be the new light of grace, (said his master) I take to be a deceitful vapour, glimmering through a CRACK IN YOUR UPPER STORY.
1773. FOOTE, The Bankrupt, ii. I can’t indeed say, his UPPER STORY is furnish’d quite to my taste.
1809. MALKIN, Gil Blas [ROUTLEDGE], 50. We drank hard, and returned to our employers in a pretty pickle, that is to say, so so in THE UPPER STORY. Ibid., 87. Arsenia and Florimonde are not strong in their UPPER WORKS.
1890. H. H. BOYESEN, A Platonic Affair, in Harper’s Magazine, lxxx. Feb., 348. It knocked everything topsy-turvy in my UPPER STORY, and there is some folks as says I hain’t never got right up thar sence.
