The Purist Purized (1-5)

Are you the man whose scent is so keen for a blunder, and who is himself blunder-proof?

I think I may say so.

I suppose one must be blunder-proof, to detect the man who is not so?

Assuredly.

Do I understand that you are proof?

How could I call myself educated, if I made blunders at my age?

Well, shall you be able to detect a culprit, and convict him if he denies it?

Of course I shall.

Catch me out, then; I will make one just now.

Say on.

Why, the deed is done, and you have missed it.

You are joking, of course?

No, upon my honour. The blunder is made, and you none the wiser. Well, try again; but you are not infallible on these sort of things.

Well?

Again, the blunder made, and you unconscious.

How can that be, before you have opened your lips?

Oh yes, I opened them, and to a blunder; but you never see them. I quite doubt you seeing this one even.

Well, there is something very queer about it if I do not know a solecism when I hear it.

One begins to doubt, when a man has missed three.

Three? What do you mean?

A complete triolet of them.

You are certainly joking.

And you are as certainly a poor detective.

If you were to say something, one might have a chance.

Four chances you have had, and no result. It would have been a fine feather in your hat to have got them all.

Nothing fine about it; it is no more than I undertook.

Why, there you are again!

Again?

‘Feather in your hat’?!

I don’t know what you mean.

Precisely; you do not know. And now suppose you go first; you do not like following, that is what it is; you understand, if you chose.

Oh, I am willing enough; only you have not made any solecisms in the usual sense.

How about that last? Now watch me well, as you did not get me that time.

I cannot say I did.

Now for a rabbit, then; there, that’s him! Has he got by? There he is, that’s him, I tell you. Hims enough to fill a warren, if you don’t wake up.

Oh, I am wide awake.

Well, they are gone.

Never!

The fact is, your too much learning renders you unconscious to solecisms; whatever case I take, it is always the same.

What you mean by that I am sure I don’t know; but I have often caught people out in blunders.

Well, you will catch me about the time that you are a sucking child again. By the way, a babe laying in his cradle would hardly jar on your notions of grammar, if you have not yet got me.

Well, I am convinced.

Now, if we cannot detect blunders like these, we are not likely to know much about our own; you see, you have just missed another. Very well now, never again call yourself competent either to detect blunders or to avoid them.

This is my blunt way, you see. Socrates of Mopsus, with whom I was acquainted in Egypt, used to put his corrections more delicately, so as not to humiliate the offender. Here are some specimens: What time do you set out on your travels?—What time? Oh, I see, you thought I started to-day.

The patrimonial income supplies me well enough.—Patrimonial? But your father is not dead?

So-and-so is a tribes-man of mine.—Oh, you are a savage, are you?

The fellow is a boozy.—Oh, Boozy was his mother’s name, was it?

Worser luck I never knew.—Well, you need not make it worserer.

I always said he had a good ’eart.—Yes, quite an artist.

So glad to see you, old cock!—Come, allow me humanity.

Contemptuous fellow! I would not go near him.—If he were contemptible, it would not matter, I suppose.

He is the most unique of friends.—Good; one likes degrees in uniqueness.

How aggravating!—Indeed? what does it aggravate?

So I ascended up.—Ingenious man, doubling your speed like that.

I had to do it; I was in an engagement.—Like Xenophon’s hoplites.

I got round him.—Comprehensive person.

They went to law, but were compounded.—You don’t say they didn’t get apart again?