in the
encephalo digital region of the distinguished individual of whose
symptomatic ph[oe]nomena we had the melancholy honour (subsequently to a
preliminary diagnostic inspection) of making an inspectorial diagnosis,
presenting the interexclusively quadrilateral and antinomian diathesis
known as Bumpsterhausen's blue follicles, we proceeded_"--

But what they proceeded to do My Lady never knew; for she was so
frightened at the long words that she ran for her life, and locked
herself into her bedroom, for fear of being squashed by the words and
strangled by the sentence. A boa constrictor, she said, was bad company
enough: but what was a boa constrictor made of paving stones?

"It was quite shocking! What can they think is the matter with him?"
said she to the old nurse.

"That his wit's just addled; may be wi' unbelief and heathenry," quoth
she.

"Then why can't they say so?"

And the heaven, and the sea, and the rocks, and the vales
re-echoed--"Why indeed?" But the doctors never heard them.

So she made Sir John write to the _Times_ to command the Chancellor of
the Exchequer for the time being to put a tax on long words;--

A light tax on words over three syllables, which are necessary evils,
like rats: but, like them, must be kept down judiciously.

A heavy tax on words over four syllables, as _heterodoxy_,
_spontaneity_, _spiritualism_, _spuriosity_, _etc._

And on words over five syllables (of which I hope no one will wish to
see any examples), a totally prohibitory tax.

And a similar prohibitory tax on words derived from three or more
languages at once; words derived from two languages having become so
common that there was no more hope of rooting out them than of rooting
out peth-winds.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, being a scholar and a man of sense,
jumped at the notion; for he saw in it the one and only plan for
abolishing Schedule D: but when he brought in his bill, most of the
Irish members, and (I am sorry to say) some of the Scotch likewise,
opposed it most strongly, on the ground that in a free country no man
was bound either to understand himself or to let others understand him.
So the bill fell through on the first reading; and the Chancellor,
being a philosopher, comforted himself with the thought that it was not
the first time that a woman had hit off a grand idea and the men turned
up their stupid noses thereat.

Now the doctors had it all their own way; and to work they went in