United States or Burundi ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"What's the matter?" "Suppose," said Mr. Patcher, huskily "suppose she missed her train." Mrs. Parcher shook her head. "Think not?" he said, brightening. "I ordered the livery-stable to have a carriage here in lots of time." "They did," said Mrs. Parcher, severely. "About five dollars' worth." "Well, I don't mind that," he returned, putting his feet up again.
The day after the sale, these scores had served in the market to wrap up butter, fish, and fruit. Thus the three grand operas of which the poor man would boast, but which an old Neapolitan cook, who was now but a patcher up of broken meats, declared to be a heap of nonsense, were scattered throughout Paris on the trucks of costermongers.
The trend of my logic for once has led us into a facetious alley. Or one might embark upon a speculative treatment of the entire Almanach de Gotha, something on the lines of Epistemon's vision of the damned great, when "Xerxes was a crier of mustard. Romulus was a salter and a patcher of patterns...." That incomparable catalogue! That incomparable catalogue!
Yet the average potato patcher prudently saves his small potatoes for next year's seed, which is just as if a breeder were to keep the colts that were too poor to sell, to be the parents of his herd. In the dark ages of farming to wit, in 1881, for this is a true story a minister of the Gospel came into possession, by inheritance, of a fifteen-acre farm a short way from Philadelphia.
Their estate and condition of living is but only changed after a very strange manner; for I saw Alexander the Great there amending and patching on clouts upon old breeches and stockings, whereby he got but a very poor living. Xerxes was a crier of mustard. Romulus, a salter and patcher of pattens. Numa, a nailsmith. Tarquin, a porter. Piso, a clownish swain. Sylla, a ferryman. Cyrus, a cowherd.
"William," she said sharply, "you will break my plates. What is the matter with you to-night?" A little later they were sitting quietly in Miss Minerva's room. She was reading "The Christian at Home," and he was absently looking at a picture book. "Sam Lamb's wife Sukey sho' is a beautiful patcher," he remarked, feeling his way.
"He seemed to be sewing." "He is sewing, and he is to-day my first gentleman of the bedchamber; he is dressing me. Ah! in the presence of this humble patcher, I remember that a wise man said, 'A king is but a man to his valet de chambre. But do not allow my presence to prevent you from building my throne; I will rest here comfortably, and look on."
"Why, harkee, master of mine," cried Peter, turning suddenly upon him with a countenance that almost petrified the patcher of shoes into a perfect lapstone, "dost thou pretend to meddle with the movements of government to regulate, and correct, and patch, and cobble a complicated machine, the principles of which are above thy comprehension, and its simplest operations too subtle for thy understanding, when thou canst not correct a trifling error in a common piece of mechanism, the whole mystery of which is open to thy inspection?
It reminds one of Epistemon's visit to Hades, when he saw Alexander a patcher of clouts and Xerxes a crier of mustard. Aphrodite, the dabbler tells me, is a kind of dirty mud-worm, and much dissected by spectacled pretenders to the London B.Sc.; every candidate, says the syllabus, must be able to dissect, to the examiner's satisfaction, and demonstrate upon Aphrodite, Nereis, Palæmon.
Word Of The Day