Page:Sylvester Sound the Somnambulist (1844).djvu/280

observation, that if they were not married they ought to be—I endeavoured to stab their reputation. Now, I'll prove that I endeavoured to do nothing of the sort."

"Do so."

"I'll prove it by logic, and I defy all the mathematicians in the habitable globe to knock it down. I'll prove it by the regular mathematical construction of the English language, and will any man tell me there's any constructed language in the universe more mathematically regular than that? I'll prove it in juxtaposition—"

"Well, prove it."

"Prove it! Well, just look you here, and if your ideas can fructify, let 'em. Just look at the grammatical character of the words: if they are not married, they ought to be. Isn't that a correct amalgamation?—and being amalgamated, what do the words mean? Is there any man in nature so lost to every sense of grammatical transubstantiation as not to see that they mean this, and nothing but this, that they ought to be married, if they are not?"

"But why ought they?"

"Why ought they? Isn't one a bachelor, and the other a spinster? And is there any law in life to prohibit such a marriage? What would be said if Johnny Russell, or Bobby Peel, were to bring in a bill to render marriages of that sort illegal? Wouldn't it be kicked out of the House neck and crop? I said they ought to be married; and I say so still. I'll not flinch from what I said. I'm not ashamed of what I say. I'd say it just as soon before their faces, as I would behind their backs. They ought to be married, and what objection can we have to such a marriage, if they like it? For my part, I think that they'd just suit each other."

"Ah!" exclaimed Pokey; "it won't do, you know. That's not what you meant."

"What do you mean by saying that's not what I meant? Can you tell the fructifications of my bosom? Can any man alive dive into another's heart, or see what's going on in another's private brain? It will take a wiser man than you, Pokey, to do it. I refer you to the words—if the words don't mean that, they mean nothing!"

"You shuffles," said Pokey.

"He always did shuffle," said Quocks.

"Shuffle!" exclaimed Obadiah, who was perfectly disgusted with Pokey's ingratitude. "You'd have shuffled through the world an ignoramus, if your weak ideas hadn't been fructified by me. What do you mean by shuffling?"

"Why you've shuffled in this!" returned Pokey, who wasn't aware that Obadiah had done anything to his ideas, with the exception of confusing them occasionally. "I don't care a button about the words, I look at what you meant, and you meant this—"

"We know what he meant very well," observed Quocks; "and I'd strongly recommend him, if his ideas must 'fructify' on matters of this character, to keep the 'fructification' to himself. It may be true that his slanders are not of much importance, because no one who knows him