XIV.
In closing this Appendix, which might be extended to almost any length, as recollections which did not occur to me in writing the body of the work come up, I cannot omit a remarkable use of the American language, let us say, since the Czar once so denominated the English tongue. It was upon the part of a town constable, perhaps as nearly of the Dogberry type as could be imagined. I was standing in the town hall, at a moment preliminary to a public meeting. A knot of youngsters had been joking one another, when this authoritative official approached. All but one speedily retired before the awful presence. “Master Constable” addressed the lingerer: “Disperge,”—a difficult operation for an individual,—“disperge, I say; we can’t have no burlash here!”
Even Shakespeare might have been glad of such an opportunity to enlarge the cacology, by actual hearing, of some of his most amusing characters.
Quoted in Dasent’s “Jest and Earnest.” London, 1873.