Three of the carriage-wheels defective! Add this to the carpet bag, and people will agree in the trite observation that misfortunes never come single. This is not true; they do come single very often, and when they do, they are more annoying than if they come in heaps. You growl at a single mishap, but if you find that Fortune is down upon you and attempts to overload you, you rise up against her with indignation, snap your fingers, and laugh at her. The last mishap brought consolation for all the others; if we had not so fortunately found out the defects in the wheels, we might have broken our necks the next day, especially, as some amateur took a fancy and helped himself to our sabot. I only wish he may be shod with it for the remainder of his days.
It is curious how the ignorant and simple always rise or depreciate others, whatever their rank may be, to their own levels, when they talk of them. I listened to one little girl telling a story to another, in which kings, queens, and princesses were the actors.
“And so,” said the queen to the princess, “what a very pretty doll that is of yours!”
“Yes, your majesty; papa bought it for me at the bazaar, and gave 5 shillings 6 pence for it,” etcetera.
This reminded me of the sailors telling stories on board of a man-of-war, who put very different language into the mouth of royalty.
“Well,” says the king, “blow me tight if I’ll stand this. You must buckle-to as fast as you please, Mrs Queen.”
“I’ll see you hanged first, and your head shaved too,” answered her majesty in a rage, etcetera, etcetera. What queens may say in a rage it is impossible to assert; but to the seamen this language appeared to be perfectly regal and quite correct.
Some people form odd notions of gentility. A cabman took up a well-dressed female, who made use of expressions which rather startled him, and he observed to a friend of his, a hackney-coachman, that he had no idea that the higher classes used such language.
“Pooh! pooh!” replied the coachman, “she warn’t a lady.”
“I beg your pardon,” replied the cabman, “a real lady, hat and feathers!”