Signor Squire?"

"We are not critics in your language, but it is reasonable to suppose
that the English speak their own tongue better than any other people.
That much must be conceded to them, at least, Signor Bolto."

"I shall acknowledge no such advantage as belonging to them. I have not
been to school for nothing; not I. The English call c-l-e-r-k, clark;
and c-u-c-u-m-b-e-r, cowcumber; and a-n-g-e-l, aingel; and no reasoning
can convince me that's right. I've got a string of words of this sort,
that they pronounce out of all reason, that's as long as a pair of
leading-lines, or a ship's tiller-rope. You must know, Signor Squire, I
kept school in the early part of my life."

"_Non e possible_!" exclaimed the vice-governatore, astonishment
actually getting the better of his habitual good breeding; "you must
mean, Signor Americano, that you gave lessons in the art of rigging and
sailing luggers."

"You never was more mistaken, Signore. I taught on the general system,
all sorts of things in the edication way; and had one of my scholars
made such a blunder as to say 'clark,' or 'aingel,' or 'harth,' or
'cowcumber,' he wouldn't have heard the last of it, for that week, at
least. But I despise an Englishman from the very bottom of my soul; for
heart isn't deep enough for my feelings."

Absurd as Ithuel's critical dissertations must appear to all who have
any familiarity with real English, they were not greatly below many
criticisms on the same subject that often illustrate the ephemeral
literature of the country; and, in his last speech, he had made a