"'There's a chovahanee, and a chovahano,
The nav se len is Petulengro.'"


"Hold your tongue, sir," said Mrs. Petulengro; "you make me ashamed
of you with your vulgar ditties. We are come a visiting now, and
everything low should be left behind."

"True," said Mr. Petulengro; "why bring what's low to the dingle,
which is low enough already?"

"What, are you a catcher at words?" said I. "I thought that
catching at words had been confined to the pothouse farmers and
village witty bodies."

"All fools," said Mrs. Petulengro, "catch at words, and very
naturally, as by so doing they hope to prevent the possibility of
rational conversation. Catching at words confined to pothouse
farmers, and village witty bodies! No, not to Jasper Petulengro.
Listen for an hour or two to the discourse of a set they call
newspaper editors, and if you don't go out and eat grass, as a dog
does when he is sick, I am no female woman. The young lord whose
hand I refused when I took up with wise Jasper, once brought two of
them to my mother's tan, when hankering after my company; they did
nothing but carp at each other's words, and a pretty hand they made
of it. Ill-favoured dogs they were; and their attempts at what
they called wit almost as unfortunate as their countenances."

"Well," said I, "madam, we will drop all catchings and carpings for
the present. Pray take your seat on this stool, whilst I go and