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So Percy, who is not without his spirit of ragging, told several whoppers, which he later confessed came from the Society of Psychical Research records. And I huskily recounted Uncle Carlton's story of the neurasthenic lady patient who went into a doctor's office and there beheld a skull standing on his polished rosewood desk.
"Johnny, I bet if you'd walk in on her now, she'd kill you with her own hands. Don't see why she hates you so, just because you tried to save your life. Of course you must ha' lied like the devil. Couldn't help it. But a lie ain't nothin'. I've told some whoppers, an' no one ain't never wanted to kill me for it. I ain't afraid of McDowell. Everyone said the Chink was a good riddance.
You take my word for it, boys, I've always considered her a high-flyer myself, but, just the same, people here do tell awful whoppers ... and swear to them. She can't be as bad as they say ... If one were to swallow everything one hears! Wasn't poor don Ramón the greatest man the District ever produced? Well, what don't they say about him?..."
"I know a man who knows a better plan," observed Hezekiah. "He spreads the bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the centre, reads a chapter of Artemus Ward to them, and goes on until they get interested. One by one they gape with astonishment at A. Ward's whoppers, and as they gape my friend whips 'em out, peppers away, and swallows 'em."
"Tell it us after breakfast," said Kathleen, as the water in the basin began to splash about and to drip from nowhere back into itself. "And oh! I do wish you hadn't written such whoppers to your aunt. I'm sure we oughtn't to tell lies for anything." "What's the use of telling the truth if nobody believes you?" came from among the splashes
I don't know how you got the information, I guess you don't know yourself. That ain't my lookout. But there she is. Telling me what many knows buys nothing with me. You got to deliver a whole lot more than that to make me swallow the rest of your whoppers." Hamilton's Law of Parsimony in the weighing of evidence!
We had to pass some whoppers, which would have satisfied any reasonable man; for there was the San Josef, and Salvador del Mondo, and San Nicolas; but nothing would suit Nelson but this four-decked ship; so we crossed the hawse of about six of them, and as soon as we were abreast of her, and at the word `Fire! every gun went off at once, slap into her, and the old Captain reeled at the discharge as if she was drunk.
"Dunny," I said weakly, but sternly, "you didn't bring me up to tell whoppers, not bare-faced ones like that, anyhow, that wouldn't deceive the veriest child. What earthly business could you have over here in war-time? Own up, now, and take your medicine like a man." His guilty air was sufficient answer. "Well, Dev," he acknowledged, "it was your cable.
Excellent as all that Artemus Ward writes really is, and exuberantly overflowing with humour as are nearly all his articles, it is too bad to accuse him of telling "whoppers." On the contrary, the old Horatian question of "Who shall forbid me to speak truth in laughter?" seems ever present to his mind.
"Follered hahteh me 'oss's 'eels heveh since. Hevery mo'nin', hit 's 'Cyows, Jack; we's y' cyows? An' horf goos Jack, 'ees hown self, 'n' fetches 'e cyows. "Beats all!" I murmured, thinking how the Munchausens run in all shapes; then, desiring to minister occasion to this somewhat clumsy practitioner, I continued, "I suppose you drop across some whoppers of snakes in your rounds, sir?"
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