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Professed eye-witnesses circulated absurd stories, of girls in the school at Syra being made "Americans" by sealing them on the arm; that one of them refused to be sealed, and two horns grew out of her head; and of a boy taken into a dark room to catechize him, where he saw the devil, and was frightened out of his senses.
She resolved, however, with her usual discretion, not to catechize him on the subject, lest his violence might revive, but to let his conduct explain itself, which she knew in a little time it would do. Nor was she mistaken. Scarcely had an hour elapsed, when, with something like exultation, he disclosed his plan, and asked her advice and opinion.
‘Who gave you the right to catechize me on this or any other subject?’ ‘Oh, no one!—it’s quite at your option whether to answer or not. And now, let me ask—have you heard what has lately befallen this friend of yours?—because, if you have not—’ ‘I will not be insulted, Mr. Markham!’ cried she, almost infuriated at my manner. ‘So you had better leave the house at once, if you came only for that.’
"Well, go ahead and catechize Topsy; may be you'll make out something yet." Topsy, who had stood like a black statue during this discussion, with hands decently folded, now, at a signal from Miss Ophelia, went on: "Our first parents, being left to the freedom of their own will, fell from the state wherein they were created." Topsy's eyes twinkled, and she looked inquiringly.
DR. JONATHAN. Are you sure of that? AUGUSTA. She confessed to me that she had had letters from him. DR. JONATHAN. And that she'd written letters in return? AUGUSTA. What right have you to catechize me, Jonathan? DR. JONATHAN. The same right, Augusta, that you have to catechize Minnie. Only I wish to discover the truth, and apparently you do not.
Ah, ha! I see where you're ladin' me; but it won't do, Miss Kitty Lowry. I'll bring you back to the catechize agin. You'd light the straw to get away in the smoke; but you're worth two gone people yet, dhough." "Worth half a dozen o' you, any day." "Well, as we're both to the fore, we'll soon see that. How did you know, my lady, that the masther's hall door was left open to-night?
Chico Furano brought a Mundongo slave, a fine specimen of humanity, some six feet high, weighing perhaps thirteen stone, all bone and muscle, willing and hard-working, looking upon the Congo men as if they were women or children. He spoke a few words of Portuguese, and with the master's assistance I was able to catechize him.
"Its too warm for argument," said Arthur, watching the curling of the gray smoke as it ascended. "We need not argue," said Abel; "I want to catechize you." "Begin." "Do you think that the African slave-trade can be defended?" "No, assuredly not." "Well," said Abel, "how can you defend your right to hold slaves as property in the United States?"
"An' pray, ma'am," said the other, for however paradoxical it may appear, it is an established case that in all such displays between women, politeness usually keeps pace with scurrility; "An' pray, ma'am," replied Kitty, "is it to the likes o' you we're to say our catechize?" Biddy was resolved not to be outdone in politeness, and replied "Af you plaise, ma'am," with a courtesy.
He has not a single fact in nature to cite in proof of it; nor is he prepared with any chain of reasoning by which it may be established. Catechize him, and he will be forced to confess that the notion was put into his mind in childhood as part of a story which he now thinks absurd.
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