I never got
such abuse from any blackguard in my life as I have from that No. 2 of
me, the one that answers the other's questions and makes the comments,
and does what in demotic phrase is called the "sarsing."
--I laughed at that. I have just such a fellow always with me, as wise
as Solomon, if I would only heed him; but as insolent as Shimei, cursing,
and throwing stones and dirt, and behaving as if he had the traditions of
the "ape-like human being" born with him rather than civilized instincts.
One does not have to be a king to know what it is to keep a king's
jester.
--I mentioned my book,--the Master said, because I have something in it
on the subject we were talking about. I should like to read you a
passage here and there out of it, where I have expressed myself a little
more freely on some of those matters we handle in conversation. If you
don't quarrel with it, I must give you a copy of the book. It's a rather
serious thing to get a copy of a book from the writer of it. It has made
my adjectives sweat pretty hard, I know, to put together an answer
returning thanks and not lying beyond the twilight of veracity, if one
may use a figure. Let me try a little of my book on you, in divided
doses, as my friends the doctors say.
-Fiat experimentum in corpore vili,--I said, laughing at my own expense.
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