a man equal to the most
difficult occasion: "He can light his cigar, when the battle is on, with
the friction of a passing cannon-ball." In yet worse taste is another
piece of fustian, invented by the same author: "When a 'twister' off
the hills gets ready to do business in a 20-knot sou'wester it sends no
messenger boys ahead to distribute its itinerary handbills." There is no
fault of style which these few lines do not display. They combine, with
a singular success, commonness and pomp. The epic poets of old were wont
to illustrate the life of man by the phenomena of nature. The vulgar
American reverses the process--he illustrates nature from the pavement.

Exaggeration, then, is one easy artifice of effect. Another is the
constant repetition of certain words and phrases which have lost their
meaning by detrition and are known to all. Not to be disappointed is
sometimes as pleasant as to be surprised. A catchword passed from one to
another is often a signal of sympathy, and many a man has been taken for
a wit merely because his tinkling brain has given back the echo which
was expected. In stereotyped phrases, in ready-made sentences, in the
small change of meaningless words, the American language is peculiarly
rich. "To cut ice," "to get next to," "straight goods," {*}--these and
similar expressions, of no obvious merit in themselves, long ago lost
their freshness, and are not likely to assume a dignity with age. But
they save trouble, they establish an understanding between him who
speaks and him who hears; and when they are thrown into a discourse they
serve the purpose of gestures, To exclaim "I should smile" or "I should
cough" is not of much help in an argument, but such interjections
as these imply an appreciation not merely of slang but of your
interlocutor.

* To the Englishman who knows them not, the following
quotations will explain their significance:--

"Tain't what ye ain't or what ye don't do that cuts ice with
me."

"Well, invested capital has got to protect itself when the
law won't do it. Ain't them straight goods?"

"Boston don't want Bishop Potter to come up here an' tell
her 't she ain't next to the latest curves in goodness.
Hully gee, no!"

Slang is better heard than read. The child of the street or the
hedgerow, it assumes in print a grave air which does not belong to it,
or, worse still, it is charged with the vice or the vagabondage which
i