10 PRECEPT AND PRACTICE. 



compensation balances, and so forth, a man was to 

 tell me I had better not attempt to regulate an old 

 Tertical watch, with a movement coarse as a roasting- 

 jack, it would be a choker — I might, in the exube- 

 rance of my wrath, and offended pride in the little I 

 knew of watch-making, draw myself up and ask the 

 man if he thought me a fool. I can, in idea, fancy 

 him very deferentially and respectfully to say, " On 

 the contrary, sir, I know you to be a man of very 

 superior mind and abilities, but this does not teach 

 you watch-making/' 



Even when we venture a laugh (of course a side 

 one) at a man's management of his horses, at the sort 

 he has bought, or at his manner of using them, it is 

 the act we laugh at, quite independent of the man. 

 We laughed at the ludicrous situations in which Gri- 

 maldi placed himself ; but we did not laugh at the man . 

 He, by his general conduct in life, commanded the 

 respect and esteem of the public and those who knew 

 him. The difference in the two cases is about this. 

 Friend Joe, if he rode his pony or donkey on to the 

 stage, did it in a way to insure our laughter, and he 



