"Hopkins once lent Simpson, his next-door neighbour, an Umbrella. You
will judge of the intellect of Hopkins, not so much from the act of
lending an Umbrella, but from his insane endeavour to get it back again.

"It poured in torrents, Hopkins had an urgent call. Hopkins knocked
at Simpson's door. 'I want my Umbrella.' Now Simpson had also a call
in a directly opposite way to Hopkins; and with the borrowed Umbrella
in his hand, was advancing to the threshold. 'I tell you,' roared
Hopkins, 'I want my Umbrella.' 'Can't have it,' said Simpson. 'Why, I
want to go to the East-end; it rains in torrents; what'--screamed
Hopkins--'what am I to do for an Umbrella?'

"'Do!' answered Simpson, darting from the door, 'do as I did--BORROW
ONE.'"

The Umbrella has been most successfully introduced on the stage.
What, for instance, would Paul Pry have been without that valuable
implement for which to inquire with his stereotyped "Hope I don't
intrude?" Or his French successor, the nobleman in "The Grand
Duchess," who inquires, in plaintive accents, for "Le parapluie de ma
mere," just after Schneider has been declaiming about her father's
sabre? Merely to bring a big Umbrella on the stage is an acknowledged
way of raising a laugh. Mrs. Gamp again, with her receptacle for
unconsidered trifles, cannot be realised apart from her Umbrella. And
then, those hired waiters who come into our houses with an Umbrella
of graceful proportions, and emerge towards the small hours with a
most plethoric parapluie, which looks as if it had been regaling on
the good things as well as its master! It used to appear to us a
comical sight, years back, in the old city of Paris, to see the
National Guard going to exercise with a musket in one hand and an