United States or Greenland ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
That was a very pretty concert we sang together last night!" "If the French devour my brethren, the English eat beef," croaked out the frog, "great, big, brutal, bellowing oxen." "Ho, whoo!" says the owl, "I have heard that the English are toad-eaters too!"
After we had remained a little time, one of his lordship's toad-eaters came to reconnoitre; and, as soon as he discovered us in the ranks, he retreated to carry the astounding intelligence to his patron. Messages now passed backwards and forwards, from the troop to his lordship's house, for nearly an hour before he made his appearance; a delay which had never before occurred.
They say at public schools Princekin is taught the beauties of equality, and thrashed into some kind of subordination. Psha! Toad-eaters in pinafores surround Princekin. Do not respectable people send their children so as to be at the same school with him; don't they follow him to college, and eat his toads through life?
A majority of the male passengers, owning no actual or prospective matrimonial subjection to those charming toad-eaters, I am afraid continued to enjoy a mild and debasing equality among themselves, mitigated only by the concessions of occasional gallantry. To them, Mrs.
A train of about twelve persons, consisting of her noble fellow-travellers, toad-eaters, physicians, secretaries, &c. &c. &c. followed. The entree of Her Majesty could not have created a greater sensation than did that of Mrs. Million. All fell back.
Not that he was what is commonly called a Screw; that is to say he was not a mere screw; but he was acute and malicious; saw everybody's worth and position at a glance; could not bear to expend his choice wines and costly viands on hangers-on and toad-eaters, though at the same time no man encouraged and required hangers-on and toad-eaters more.
The next time New York's toad-eaters give a bal-masque they should disguise themselves as American sovereigns and their consorts. Of course it will be a trifle difficult for them to play the part of respectable people; but they will find even awkward effort in that direction refreshing, and calculated to inspire them with respect for their country's flag.
I exclude all toad-eaters, sneaks, flatterers, and fawning impostors, from the school-boy who thinks to gain his master's favor by voluntarily bearing tales of his companions, up to the bishop who declared that he regarded it not merely as a constitutional principle, but as an ethical fact, that the king could do no wrong, and the other bishop who declared that the reason why George II. died was that this world was not good enough for him, and it was necessary to transfer him to heaven that he might be the right man in the right place.
At a private school he could recollect the master's wife stroking his pretty curls and treating him furtively to goodies; at college he had the tutor simpering and bowing as he swaggered over the grass-plat; old men at clubs would make way for him and fawn on him not your mere pique-assiettes and penniless parasites, but most respectable toad-eaters, fathers of honest families, gentlemen themselves of good station, who respected this young gentleman as one of the institutions of their country, and the admired wisdom of the nation that set him to legislate over us.
The unpalatable fact is that we are a nation of toad-eaters. President Cleveland is, in this respect at least, eminently representative of the American people. The axiom that "like takes to like" accounts for his popularity. It was that which enabled him to beat Jim Blaine.