professor what it was.
He looked at it and said it was gneiss.
"Is it?" said I. "Well, if a small but energetic
youth had taken you on the back of the head
with it, you would not think it so nice!"
And then, O Squib, he set out to explain that he
meant "gneiss," not "nice!" The ignorance of
these English about a joke is really wonderful. It
is easy to see that they have never been brought
up on them. But perhaps there was some excuse