“That is true,” said Malachi, “for when I was in the militia, they made me a sixteenth corporal, and I carried grog to the drummer.”
“That is another affair,” said the Doctor, in continuation, “we speak of man in his essence; we speak also of the essence of locality, the essence of duration—”
“And essence of peppermint,” said Aunt Judy.
“Pooh!” said the Doctor, “the essence I mean is quite a different concern.”
“Something too fine to be dribbled through the worm of a still,” said my grandfather.
“Then I am all in the dark again,” rejoined Aunt Judy.
“By the spirit and essence of things I mean things in the abstract.”
“And what becomes of a thing when it gets into the abstract?” asked Uncle Tim.
“Why, it becomes an abstraction.”
“There we are again,” said Uncle Tim; “but what the deuce is an abstraction?”