'
'Wery well,' replied Bob, 'here goes it!' and off he hurried to
his case, muttering as he went: 'Considdeble vell, them ere
expressions, perticcler for a man as doesn't swar. So I's to gouge out
all their eyes, eh? and d-n all their gizzards! Vell! this here's
the chap as is just able for to do it.' The fact is that although
Bob was but twelve years old and four feet high, he was equal to any
amount of fight, in a small way.
The exigency here described is by no means of rare occurrence in
printing-offices; and I cannot tell how to account for it, but the
fact is indisputable, that when the exigency does occur, it almost
always happens that x is adopted as a substitute for the letter
deficient. The true reason, perhaps, is that x is rather the most
superabundant letter in the cases, or at least was so in the old
times- long enough to render the substitution in question an
habitual thing with printers. As for Bob, he would have considered
it heretical to employ any other character, in a case of this kind,
than the x to which he had been accustomed.
'I shell have to x this ere paragrab,' said he to himself, as he
read it over in astonishment, 'but it's jest about the awfulest o-wy
paragrab I ever did see': so x it he did, unflinchingly, and to
press it went x-ed.
Next morning the population of Nopolis were taken all aback by
reading in 'The Tea-Pot,' the following extraordinary leader:
'Sx hx, Jxhn! hxw nxw? Txld yxu sx, yxu knxw. Dxn't crxw, anxther
time, befxre yxu're xut xf the wxxds! Dxes yxur mxther knxw yxu're
xut? Xh, nx, nx!- sx gx hxme at xnce, nxw, Jxhn, tx yxur xdixus xld
wxxds xf Cxncxrd! Gx hxme tx yxur wxxds, xld xwl,- gx! Yxu wxn't?
Xh, pxh, pxh, Jxhn, dxn't dx sx! Yxu've gxt tx gx, yxu knxw, sx gx
at xnce, and dxn't gx slxw; fxr nxbxdy xwns yxu here, yxu knxw.
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