64 THE MISERIES OF A GRAMMARIAN. 



ter ; not a donkey race — a horse race. What bad taste it must be 

 of you not to know these matters : why you must have come from 

 the ant poles (Antipodes,) not to know nothing of these matters : but 

 come, take your wine, for I am off to the play/ 



' Indeed, sir, you are not off; yours is the present tense, and I am 

 sorry for it/ 



* Well, sir,^ saucily, * and if I was off.' 



* If you were you would not be missed/ 



The doctor rose in much pain of mind and body to return to the 

 drawing room,' hoping that tea might cool the irritation of his nerves, 

 and act as a stimulus on one suffering and exhausted by the 

 destruction of grammar, to which he had been an unwilling witness. 

 On the invalid elderly gentleman's entering the room, he was kind- 

 ly received by the young ladies, and could not help observing that 

 the gentleman who had left them was rather presuming. 



' Yes, indeed,' said Mrs. Middleditch, * he often makes me his 

 butt : howsomdever I gave him an int that I could not put up vith 

 his sass, and he has discontinered it/ 



The poor doctor had a bit of bread and butter in his hand, all 

 taste for which fled in a moment, the idea of the young man's sass 

 or sauce turning his stomach. 



* Oh, Lor!^ exclaimed the lady of the house, *otv compressive it 

 is ; there's not a breath of hair : I shall be sofisticated, doctor, if you 

 do not wentilate the saloon ; do, pray, hopen the door.' 



At this opening the scholar flew off to his apartment, resolved to 

 shut himself up for the night, and to solace himself by reading 

 * Burke on the Sublime and Beautiful ;' but scarcely had he been 

 there a moment when the forbidden house maid entered, and asked 

 him for some court plaister for one of the young ladies who had 

 cutted her finger. 



*How did she do it?' 



' With a knife, like.' 



* I believe,' observed the doctor, * if it had only been the likeness 

 and similitude of a knife, all might have been well ; it is the reality 

 which has produced the evil. Go, young woman, with my respects 

 to the young sufferer' — 



^ Who's she?' stupidly interrupted the spider brusher. 



" Why, the young lady, and give her that adhesive application.' 



'Who's she?' 



Doctor Qualm gave her the court plaister without answering her 

 question, and put her out of his room. He paced his chamber 

 until eleven o'clock, and then repaired to his couch. Twelve, one, 



