"Ah! ha! I told you so."

"Yes, yes--but translate."

"Translate!" (eyebrows elevating.)

"Yes, translate, render it."

"Render it!! how's that?" (forehead more wrinkled.)

"Why, yes, render it into English--give me the meaning of it."

"MEANING!!" (staring full in my face, his eyes like saucers, and
forehead wrinkled with the furrows of eighty)--"MEANING!! I didn't know
it _had_ any meaning. I thought it was a DEAD language!!"

* * * * *

Well, reader, I am glad you are _not_ laughing at Mr. Rapid; for how
should anything _dead_ speak out so as to be understood? And indeed,
does not his definition suit the vexed feelings of some young gentlemen
attempting to read Latin without any interlinear translation? and who
inwardly, cursing both book and teacher, blast their souls "if they can
make any sense out of it." The ancients may yet speak in their own
languages to a few; but to most who boast the honor of their
acquaintance, they are certainly dead in the sense of Solomon Rapid.