"
"I don't wish to flatter you, but it is about all I can do to understand
you now."
That was a very pretty compliment, and it put us on the pleasantest terms
directly--I use the word in the English sense.
[Later--1882. Esthetes in many of our schools are now beginning to teach
the pupils to broaden the 'a,' and to say "don't you," in the elegant
foreign way.]
ROGERS
This Man Rogers happened upon me and introduced himself at the town
of -----, in the South of England, where I stayed awhile. His stepfather
had married a distant relative of mine who was afterward hanged; and so
he seemed to think a blood relationship existed between us. He came in
every day and sat down and talked. Of all the bland, serene human
curiosities I ever saw, I think he was the chiefest. He desired to look
at my new chimney-pot hat. I was very willing, for I thought he would
notice the name of the great Oxford Street hatter in it, and respect me
accordingly. But he turned it about with a sort of grave compassion,
pointed out two or three blemishes, and said that I, being so recently
arrived, could not be expected to know where to supply myself.
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