Till one day they sent word "There
is nothing left." Then he bethought him how to live on credit, but
this plan was very much hampered by his habit of turning in a passion
on all those who did not continually praise him. Did an honest man
look in and say, "Jack, there is a goat eating your cabbages," he
would fly into a rage and say, "You lie, Pro-Boer, my cabbages are
sacred, and Jove would strike the goat dead that dared to eat them,"
or if a poor fellow should touch his hat in the street and say,
"Pardon, sir, your buttons are awry," he would answer, "Off, villain!
Zounds, knave! Know you not that my Divine buttons are the model of
things?" and so forth, until he fell into a perfect lunacy.
But of how he came to selling tokens of little leaden soldiers at a
penny in front of the Exchange, and of how at last he even fell to
writing for the papers, I will not tell you; for, _imprimis_,
it has not happened yet, nor do I think it will, and in the second
place I am tired of writing.
ON A WINGED HORSE AND THE EXILE WHO RODE HIM
It so happened that one day I was riding my horse Monster in the
Berkshire Hills right up above that White Horse which was dug they
say by this man and by that man, but no one knows by whom; for I was
seeing England, a delightful pastime, but a somewhat anxious one if
one is riding a horse.
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