p, and that he is
spinning with it, he says, "Yes, I've heard a deal of that in my time,
sir," and lifts the horizontal lines of his brow a little higher,
balancing his head from side to side as if it were too painfully full.
Whether I tell him that they cook puppies in China, that there are ducks
with fur coats in Australia, or that in some parts of the world it is
the pink of politeness to put your tongue out on introduction to a
respectable stranger, Pummel replies, "So I suppose, sir," with an air
of resignation to hearing my poor version of well-known things, such as
elders use in listening to lively boys lately presented with an
anecdote book. His utmost concession is, that what you state is what he
would have supplied if you had given him _carte blanche_ instead of your
needless instruction, and in this sense his favourite answer is, "I
should say."

"Pummel," I observed, a little irritated at not getting my coffee, "if
you were to carry your kettle and spirits of wine up a mountain of a
morning, your water would boil there sooner." "I should say, sir." "Or,
there are boiling springs in Iceland. Better go to Iceland." "That's
what I've been thinking, sir."

I have taken to asking him hard questions, and as I expected, he never
admits his own inability to answer them without representing it as
common to the human race. "What is the cause of the tides, Pummel?"

"Well, sir, nobody rightly knows. Many gives their opinion, but if I
was to give mine, it 'ud be different."

But while he is never surprised himself, he is constantly imagining
situations of surprise for others. His own consciousness is that of one
so thoroughly soaked in knowledge that further absorption is
impossible, but his neighbours appear to him to be in the state of
thirsty sponges which it is a charity to besprinkle. His great
interest in thinking of foreigners is that they must be surprised at
what they see in England, and especially at the beef. He is often
occupied with the surprise Adam must have felt at the sight of the
assembled animals--"for he was not like us, sir, used from a b'y to
Wombwell's shows." He is fond of discoursing to the lad who acts as
shoe-black and general subaltern, and I have overheard him saying to
that small upstart, with some severity, "Now don't you pretend to know,
because the more you pretend the more I see your ignirance"--a lucidity
on his part which has confirmed my impression that the thoroughly
self-satis