"I was leader."
"And quite a hand at all athletic exercises?"
"Quite a hand? My gracious! I was champion walker, the best runner, the head man at lifting heavy weights, and as for carrying—why, I could shoulder a barrel of flour and—"
"Well, love, just please carry the baby for a couple of hours, I'm tired."
92. TOO PREMATURE
[Anything rather premature may be illustrated by the following:]
A spring bird that had taken time by the forelock flew across the lawn near this city one day last week. His probable fate is best described in this pathetic verse, author unknown:
"The first bird of spring
Essayed for to sing;
But ere he had uttered a note
He fell from the limb,
A dead bird was him,
The music had friz in his throat."
93. A BEWILDERED IRISHMAN
The poet Shelley tells an amusing story of the influence that language "hard to be understood" exercises on the vulgar mind. Walking near Covent Garden, London, he accidentally jostled against an Irish navvy, who, being in a quarrelsome mood, seemed inclined to attack the poet. A crowd of ragged sympathizers began to gather, when Shelley, calmly facing them, deliberately pronounced: