We somehow greedily
gobble down all stories in which the characters of our friends are
chopped up, and believe wrong of them without inquiry. In a late serial
work written by this hand, I remember making some pathetic remarks
about our propensity to believe ill of our neighbours--and I remember
the remarks, not because they were valuable, or novel, or ingenious,
but because, within three days after they had appeared in print, the
moralist who wrote them, walking home with a friend, heard a story
about another friend, which story he straightway believed, and which
story was scarcely more true than that sausage fable which is here set
down. _O mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!_ But though the preacher trips,
shall not the doctrine be good? Yea, brethren! Here be the rods. Look
you, here are the scourges. Choose me a nice, long, swishing, buddy
one, light and well-poised in the handle, thick and bushy at the tail.
Pick me out a whip-cord thong with some dainty knots in it--and now--we
all deserve it--whish, whish, whish! Let us cut into each other all
round.
A favourite liar and servant of mine was a man I once had to drive a
brougham. He never came to my house, except for orders, and once when
he helped to wait at dinner, so clumsily that it was agreed we would
dispense with his further efforts. The (job) brougham horse used to
look dreadfully lean and tired, and the livery-stable keeper complained
that we worked him too hard. Now, it turned out that there was a
neighbouring butcher's lady who liked to ride in a brougham; and
Tomkins lent her ours, drove her cheerfully to Richmond and Putney,
and, I suppose, took out a payment in mutton-chops.
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