“Vait!” shouted the agonized father. “Vait! Didn’t I say only ve should have a dinner if Miriam was a success?”
A spokesman for the others raised his face from the terrapin stew.
“Vell,” he said, “ve liked her!”
And went right on eating.
§ 198 Precisely the Right Word
Sometimes a speaker, casting about for exactly the right word, hits on the wrong word and yet, paradoxically, the wrong word seems exactly to sum up the situation which the orator has sought to describe.
Down at Whitehall, which is in the state of Virginia not many miles from Richmond, a negro farm-hand, whose first name was Levi, met a violent and sudden death. He was ploughing a corn patch when a thunder shower came up. In the midst of the storm, a bolt of lightning struck the tree under which he had taken shelter and scarcely enough of him was left for purposes of burial.
Nevertheless, his family and friends did give him an elaborate funeral. A colored minister, with a reputation for eloquence, was imported at considerable cost to preach the sermon.
The preacher very soon got into his swing while the congregation swayed and moaned and gave vent to muffled hallelujahs and amens. He came to his climax:
“De call fur our pore brother wuz swift an’ suddin. He did not linger fur long months on de bed of pain an’ affliction. He did not suffer an’ waste away. No suh, de Lawd jest teched an electric button in de skies an’ summarized Levi!”