A man being asked did he understand German, answered, “No, but I have a cousin who plays the German flute.” Another enquiring at a bookseller, if he had the “Whole duty of man,” got for answer, “No, sir, but we have Mrs. Glasse’s cookery!”
SYDNEY SMITH’S SERVANTS.
Sydney Smith had for an attendant in his time a clean, fair, squat, tidy little girl about twelve years of age named Bunch. Mrs. Marcet, who was staying in the house, met her host at the foot of the stair when Bunch was passing. Mr. Smith suddenly said, “Bunch, do you like roast duck or boiled chicken?” Bunch had probably never tasted either the one or the other in her life, but answered without a moment’s hesitation, “Roast duck please, sir,” and disappeared. I laughed. “You may laugh,” said he, “but you have no idea of the labour it has cost me to give her that decision of character. The Yorkshire peasantry are the quickest and shrewdest in the world, but you can never get a direct answer from them; if you ask them even their own names, they always scratch their heads and say, ‘A’s sur ai don’t knaw, sir;’ but I have brought Bunch to such perfection that she never hesitates now on any subject, however difficult. I am very strict with her. Would you like to hear her repeat her crimes? She has them by heart and repeats them everyday.” “Come here, Bunch!” (calling out to her), “come and repeat your crimes to Mrs. Marcet;” and Bunch, quite as a matter of course, as grave as a judge, without the least hesitation, and with a loud voice began to repeat—“Plate-snatching, gravy-spilling, door-slamming, blue-bottle fly-catching and curtsey-bobbing.” “Explain to Mrs. Marcet what blue-bottle fly-catching is.” “Standing with my mouth open and not attending, sir.” “And what is curtsey-bobbing?” “Curtseying to the centre of the earth, please sir.” “Good girl! now you may go.” “She makes a capital waiter, I assure you. On state occasions, Jack Robinson, my carpenter, takes off his apron and waits too, and does pretty well, but he sometimes naturally makes a mistake, and sticks a gimlet into the bread instead of a fork.”
SYDNEY SMITH’S COACH COMPANIONS.
On another occasion some years later, when I was going to Brougham Hall, two raw Scotch girls got into the coach in the dark, near Carlisle. “It is very disagreeable getting into a coach in the dark,” exclaimed one, after arranging her band-boxes, “one cannot see one’s company.” “Very true, ma’am, and you have a great loss in not seeing me, for I am a remarkably handsome man.” “No, sir! are you really?” said both. “Yes, and in the flower of my youth.” “What a pity,” said they. We soon passed near a lamp-post; they both darted forward to get a look at me. “Lo, sir, you seem very stout.” “Oh, no, not at all, ma’am, it’s only my great coat.” “Where are you going, sir?” “To Brougham Hall.” “Why, you must be a very remarkable man, to be going to Brougham Hall.” “I am a very remarkable man, ma’am.” At Penrith they got out, after having talked incessantly, and tried every possible means to discover who I was, exclaiming, as they went off laughing, “Well, it is very provoking we can’t see you, but we’ll find out who you are at the hall; Lord Brougham always comes to the ball at Penrith, and we shall certainly be there, and shall soon discover your name.”
A PROOF OF GOOD WINE.
A hospitable host in recommending some light wine on the dinner table used the old expression, “There’s not a headache in a bottle of it.” One of his guests, with more truth than politeness, replied, “No, but there’s a belly-ache in every glass of it.”
AN IMPOSTOR.
A man of good appearance gave himself out as a lecturer on English literature. Fortified with letters to certain Professors of Trinity College, a small but select audience assembled to hear him. Moore, who was present, among other questions asked him if he was acquainted with “Shenstone’s School Mistress.” He replied, “Yes, but ha’n’t seen her for some time.” In the course of the lecture, he quoted a passage from Lucan, which he said was counted by some critics very “helegant and hingenious,” and which he read as follows:—“The ’evens hintomb, ’im ’oom the hearth does not hinter,” he declared his own opinion that it was neither “helegant nor hingenious.”
THE END.