7–8
Lycinus
‘I expect him momently,’ some one announced. ‘A good phrase,’ he said; ‘so is “minutely”; we have excellent authority for “daily.” ’
'Look you!’ said a man, meaning ‘look.’ ‘Yes, what am I to look you at?’
He took up a man who said, ‘Yes, I can grapple with that,’ meaning that he understood, with ‘Oh, you are going to throw me, are you? how?’
‘How shrill those fives are!’ said some one. ‘Oh, come now,’ said Socrates; ‘seditions and strives, but not drums and fives.’
‘That man is heavily weighed,” one man observed. ‘You are quite right; there is no such word as weighted.’ ‘He has thrived on it,’ some one assured him. ‘The people among whom he has thrived cannot be very particular.’
10
People were very fond of calling it at-one-ment. ‘Yes, all right,’ he would say; ‘I know what it means.’
Mention being made of a black-hen, he supposed that would be the female of the grey-cock.
Some one said he had been eating sparrowgrass. ‘You'll be trying groundsel next,’ was his comment.
But enough of Socrates. Shall we have another match on the old lines? I will give you nothing but first-rate ones. Have your eyes open. You will surely be able to do it now, after hearing such a list of them.
Purist
I am by no means so sure of that. Proceed, however.
Lycinus
Not sure? well, but here you have the door broad open.
Purist
Nothing that I observed.
Lycinus
What, not observed ‘broad open’?
