Here I stopped because I had nothing more to say; but seeing that my wife was gazing out of the window in a most inattentive manner, yet not wishing her to think that my fund of knowledge was exhausted, I added: “But a truce to this style of conversation. Remember that we are a newly married couple, and are not expected to talk so rationally.”
A pause ensued, during which, with great amusement and no little surprise at the facts and doctrines enunciated, we listened to the following dialogue between two rosy-cheeked Englishmen sitting in the seat behind us:
First Briton (loquitur).—“How disgusting it is to see those vile spittoons in hotels, in private houses, in churches—everywhere; and notwithstanding that their name is legion, the essence of nicotine is to be seen on all sides, dyeing the floors, the walls, the furniture.”
Second Briton.—“I have sometimes doubted whether the Americans expectorate to obtain good luck, or whether it is that they have such good fortune ever attending upon their designs and plans because they expectorate so much.”
First B. (rather dazed).—“I don’t understand you.”
Second B. (in tones of surprise at the other’s want of comprehension).—“Don’t you know that many Englishmen spit if they meet a white horse, or a squinting man, or a magpie, or if, inadvertently, they step under a ladder, or wash their hands in the same basin as a friend? In Lancashire, boys spit over their fingers before beginning to fight, and travelers do the same on a stone when leaving home, and then throw it away, and market people do it on the first money they receive.”
First B. (interrogatively).—“But, if these dirty people do indulge in this unseemly habit, what then?”
Second B.—“Why, they consider it a charm that will bring good luck, or avert evil. Swedish peasants expectorate thrice if they cross water after dark. The old Athenians used to spit if they passed a madman. The savage New Zealand priest wets two sticks with his saliva when he strives to divine the result of a coming battle.”
First B.—“But the why and the wherefore of all this expectoration?”
Second B.—“Because the mouth was once considered the only portal by which evil spirits could enter into a man, and by which alone they could be forced to make their exit; and the idea was to drive the fiends out with the saliva. The Mussulmans made spitting and nose-blowing a part of their religious ceremonies, for they hoped thereby to free themselves from the demons which they believed filled the air; and a Kamtschatkan priest, after he has sprinkled with holy water the babe brought to the baptismal font, spits solemnly to north and south, to east and west.”