“You have intuitively discovered the reason—is it not fashionable to abuse the government everywhere? Whatever you do, in genteel life, ought to be based on liberal and elevated principles; and therefore, abuse all that is animate in Leaplow, the present company, with their relatives and quadrupeds, excepted; but do not raise your blaspheming tongue against anything that is inanimate! Respect, I entreat of you, the houses, the trees, the rivers, the mountains, and, above all, in Bivouac, respect the Wide-path! We are a people of lively sensibilities, and are tender of the reputations of even our stocks and stones. Even the Leaplow philosophers are all of a mind on this subject.”
“King!”
“Can you account for this very extraordinary peculiarity, brigadier?”
“Surely you cannot be ignorant that all which is property is sacred! We have a great respect for property, sir, and do not like to hear our wares underrated. But lay it on the mass so much the harder, and you will only be thought to be in possession of a superior and a refined intelligence.”
Here we turned again to Mr. Wriggle, who was dying to be noticed once more.
“Ah! gentlemen, last from Leaphigh!”—he had been questioning one of our attendants—“how comes on that great and consistent people?”
“As usual, sir;—great and consistent.”
“I think, however, we are quite their equals, eh?—chips of the same blocks?”
“No, sir—blocks of the same chips.”
Mr. Wriggle laughed, and appeared pleased with the compliment; and I wished I had even laid it on a little thicker.