--What would you do, if
the folks without names kept at you, trying to get a San Benito on to
your shoulders that would fit you?--Would you stand still in fly-time, or
would you give a kick now and then?
Let 'em bite!--said the Little Gentleman,--let 'em bite! It makes 'em
hungry to shake 'em off, and they settle down again as thick as ever and
twice as savage. Do you know what meddling with the folks without names,
as you call 'em, is like?--It is like riding at the quintaan. You run
full tilt at the board, but the board is on a pivot, with a bag of sand
on an arm that balances it. The board gives way as soon as you touch it;
and before you have got by, the bag of sand comes round whack on the back
of your neck. "Ananias," for instance, pitches into your lecture, we
will say, in some paper taken by the people in your kitchen. Your
servants get saucy and negligent. If their newspaper calls you names,
they need not be so particular about shutting doors softly or boiling
potatoes. So you lose your temper, and come out in an article which you
think is going to finish "Ananias," proving him a booby who doesn't know
enough to understand even a lyceum-lecture, or else a person that tells
lies.
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