The Professor
gathered up the fragments of glass, and with them certain very
minute but entirely satisfactory documents which would have
identified and hanged any rogue in Christendom who had parted with
them.--The historical question, WHO DID IT? and the financial
question, WHO PAID FOR IT? were both settled before the new lamp
was lighted the next evening.
You see, my friends, what immense conclusions, touching our lives,
our fortunes, and our sacred honor, may be reached by means of very
insignificant premises. This is eminently true of manners and
forms of speech; a movement or a phrase often tells you all you
want to know about a person. Thus, "How's your health?" (commonly
pronounced haalth)--instead of, How do you do? or, How are you?
Or calling your little dark entry a "hall," and your old rickety
one-horse wagon a "kerridge." Or telling a person who has been trying
to please you that he has given you pretty good "sahtisfahction."
Or saying that you "remember of" such a thing, or that you have
been "stoppin"' at Deacon Somebody's,--and other such expressions.
One of my friends had a little marble statuette of Cupid in the
parlor of his country-house,--bow, arrows, wings, and all complete.
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