I have a sort of valet and factotum, an excellent, respectable servant,
whose spelling is so unvitiated by non-phonetic superfluities that he
writes _night_ as _nit_. One day, looking over his accounts, I said to
him jocosely, "You are in the latest fashion with your spelling, Pummel:
most people spell "night" with a _gh_ between the _i_ and the _t_, but
the greatest scholars now spell it as you do." "So I suppose, sir,"
says Pummel; "I've see it with a _gh_, but I've noways give into that
myself." You would never catch Pummel in an interjection of surprise. I
have sometimes laid traps for his astonishment, but he has escaped them
all, either by a respectful neutrality, as of one who would not appear
to notice that his master had been taking too much wine, or else by that
strong persuasion of his all-knowingness which makes it simply
impossible for him to feel himself newly informed. If I tell him that
the world is spinning round and along like a top, and that he is
spinning with it, he says, "Yes, I've heard a deal of that in my time,
sir," and lifts the horizontal lines of his brow a little higher,
balancing his head from side to side as if it were too painfully full.
Whether I tell him that they cook puppies in China, that there are ducks
with fur coats in Australia, or that in some parts of the world it is
the pink of politeness to put your tongue out on introduction to a
respectable stranger, Pummel replies, "So I suppose, sir," with an air
of resignation to hearing my poor version of well-known things, such as
elders use in listening to lively boys lately presented with an
anecdote book. His utmost concession is, that what you state is what he
would have supplied if you had given him _carte blanche_ instead of your
needless instruction, and in this sense his favourite answer is, "I
should say."

"Pummel," I observed, a little irritated at not getting my coffee, "if