nds. I was over here, last year, at the mouth
of the Nile, and in that pretty bit of work--and off Cape St. Vincent,
too--and in a dozen more of their battles, and sorely against my will,
on every account. This was hard to be borne, but the hardest of it has
not yet been said; nor do I know that I shall tell on't at all."
"Anything the Americano may think proper to relate will be listened to
with pleasure."
Ithuel was a good deal undecided whether to go on or not; but taking a
fresh pull at the flask, it warmed his feelings to the sticking point.
"Why, it was adding insult to injury. It's bad enough to injure a man,
but when it comes to insulting him into the bargain, there must be but
little grit in his natur' if it don't strike fire."
"And yet few are wronged who are not calumniated," observed the
philosophical vice-governatore. "This is only too much the case with our
Italy, worthy neighbor Vito Viti."
"I calculate the English treat all mankind alike, whether it's in Italy
or Ameriky," for so Ithuel would pronounce this word, notwithstanding he
had now been cruising in and near the Mediterranean several years; "but
what I found hardest to be borne was their running their rigs on me
about my language and ways, which they were all the time laughing at as
Yankee conversation and usages, while they pretended that the body out
of which all on it come was an English body, and so they set it up to be
shot at, by any of their inimies that might happen to be jogging along
our road. Then, squire, it is generally consaited among us in Ameriky,
that we speak much the best English a-going; and sure am I, that none on
us call a 'hog' an ''og,' an 'anchor' a 'hanchor,' or a 'horse' an
''orse.' What is thought of that matter in this part of the world,
Signor Squire?"
"We are not critics in your language, but it is reasonable to suppose
that the English speak their own tongue better than any other people.
That much must be conceded to them, at least, Signor Bolto."
"I shall acknowledge no such advantage as belonging to them. I have not
been to school for nothing; not I. The English call c-l-e-r-k, clark;
and c-u-c-u-m-b-e-r, cowcumber; and a-n-g-e-l, aingel; and no reasoning
can convince me that's right. I've got a string of words of this sort,
that they pronounce out of all reason, that's as long as a pair of
leading-lines, or a ship's tiller-rope. You must know, Signor Squire, I
kept school in the early part of my lif
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