The squire stared, and bade Mr. Stirn be admitted.
“Well?” cried the squire, suspending the operation of stropping his razor.
Mr. Stirn groaned.
“Well, man, what now?”
“I never knowed such a thing in this here parish afore,” began Mr. Stirn; “and I can only ‘count for it by s’posing that them foreign Papishers have been semminating—”
“Been what?”
“Semminating—”
“Disseminating, you blockhead,—disseminating what?”
“Damn the stocks,” began Mr. Stirn, plunging right in medias res, and by a fine use of one of the noblest figures in rhetoric.
“Mr. Stirn!” cried the squire, reddening, “did you say, ‘Damn the stocks’?—damn my new handsome pair of stocks!”