"I asked him his name."
"And what did he answer?" cried he of the flaxen wig, while all of us crowded round the speaker, with the curiosity every one felt in the authorship of a work then exciting the most universal and eager interest.
"He answered me solemnly," said Steele, "in the following words,—
"'Graeci carent ablativo, Itali dativo, ego nominativo.'"*
* "The Greek wants an ablative, the Italians a dative, I a nominative."
"Famous—capital!" cried the gentleman in spectacles; and then, touching
Colonel Cleland, added, "what does it exactly mean?"
"Ignoramus!" said Cleland, disdainfully, "every /schoolboy knows
Virgil/!"
"Devereux," said Tarleton, yawning, "what a d——d delightful thing it is to hear so much wit: pity that the atmosphere is so fine that no lungs unaccustomed to it can endure it long, Let us recover ourselves by a walk."
"Willingly," said I; and we sauntered forth into the streets.
"Wills's is not what it was," said Tarleton; "'tis a pitiful ghost of its former self, and if they had not introduced cards, one would die of the vapours there."