you're in it, oh, it _is_ bully!"

The general use of picturesque metaphor is of course a striking feature
of American conversation. Many of these expressions have taken firm root
in England, such as "to have no use for" a man, or "to take no stock in"
a theory. But fresh inventions crop up on every hand in America. For
instance, where an English theatrical manager would say, "We must get
this play well talked about and paragraphed in advance," an American
manager puts the whole thing much more briefly and forcibly in the
phrase, "We don't want this piece to come in on rubbers." Metaphor
apart, many Americans have a gift of fantastic extravagance of phrase
which often produces an irresistible effect. A gentleman in high
political office had one day to receive a deputation with whose objects
he had no sympathy. He listened for some time to the spokesman of the
party, and then, at a pause, broke in with the remark: "Gentlemen, you
need proceed no further. I am not an entirely dishevelled jackass!" One
would give something for a snapshot photograph of the faces of that
deputation.

Small differences of expression (other than those with which every one
is familiar--such as "elevator," "baggage," "depot," &c.)--strike one in
daily life. The American for "To let" is "For rent;" a "thing one would
wish to have expressed otherwise" is, more briefly, "a bad break;"
instead of "He married money" an American will say "He married rich;"
but this, I take it, is a vulgarism--as, indeed, is the English
expression. I find that in the modern American novel, setting forth the
sayings and doings of more or less educated people, there are apt to be,
on an average, about half a dozen words and phrases at which the English
reader stumbles for a moment. Mr. Howells, a master of English, may be
taken as a faithful reporter of the colloquial speech of Boston and New