[176] The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader. We subjoin a specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as prose or verse: ‘Any writard who writes dynamitard shall find in me a never-resting fightard;’ and he goes on (if we correctly gather his meaning) to object to such elegant and obviously correct spellings as lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple-filchard (clearly justified by the parallel—pilchard) and opera dancard. ‘Dynamitist,’ he adds, ‘I could understand.’
[182] The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch which our translation usually prætermits, here registers a somewhat interesting detail. Zero pronounced the word ‘boom;’ and the reader, if but for the nonce, will possibly consent to follow him.