“Heads!”
“That’s excellent, by his majesty’s prerogative! Here’s civilization, with a vengeance!”
I now thought that the general ridicule would overwhelm me. Two or three came closer, as if in pity or curiosity; and, at last, one cried out that I actually wore clothes.
“Clothes—the wretch! Chatterino, do all your human friends wear clothes?”
The young peer was obliged to confess the truth; and then there arose such a clamor as may be fancied took place among the peacocks, when they discovered the daw among them in masquerade. Human nature could endure no more; and bowing to the company, I wished Lord Chatterino, very hurriedly, good-morning, and proceeded towards the tavern.
“Don’t forget to step into Chatterino House, Goldencalf, before you sail,” cried my late fellow-traveller, looking over his shoulder, and nodding in quite a friendly way towards me.
“King!” exclaimed Captain Poke. “That blackguard ate a whole bread-locker-full of nuts on our outward passage, and now he tells us to step into his Chatterino House, before we sail!”
I endeavored to pacify the sealer, by an appeal to his philosophy. It was true that men never forgot obligations, and were always excessively anxious to repay them; but the monikins were an exceedingly instructed species; they thought more of their minds than of their bodies, as was plain by comparing the smallness of the latter with the length and development of the seat of reason; and one of his experience should know that good-breeding is decidedly an arbitrary quality, and that we ought to respect its laws, however opposed to our own previous practices.
“I dare say, friend Noah, you may have observed some material difference in the usages of Paris, for instance, and those of Stunin’tun.”
“That I have, Sir John, that I have; and altogether to the advantage of Stunin’tun be they.”