Belgravia Volume 5 (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTERS FROM LILLIPUT BEIXG ESSAYS ON THE EXTREMELY LITTLE BY GEOBOE AUGUSTUS SALA T. Ox Little Mabtybs It was at Nazzari's, I think, in the Piazza di Spagna, at Rome, that I had the advantage to meet Dr. Positive at dinner. I don't think he was a reverend; but I am almost certain that he had been a schoolmaster; for his hands had the real scholastic knuckles, and, in prona- tion, seemed capable of assuming the true schoolmaster's grip. When silent, which was seldom, his large lips were inflexibly compressed. His eyebrows had that peculiar property of arching downwards, the which, when beheld by little boys, causes their hearts to descend into their boots; and in the eyes themselves you seemed to read " In two minutes, my young friend, and after another false quantity, I shall be compelled to give you some directions in connection with your pantaloons;" or something eloquent of that kind. He denied most things, and contradicted everybody. He did not precisely call me a fool; but the severely scornful tone in which he told me that the cutlet which I had assumed to be lamb was, in reality, kid, convinced me that Dr. Positive had a very mean opinion of my intellect. I know, now, that the cutlet teas lamb; for I asked Nazzari's head-waiter about it, and gave him ten bajocchi for his pains; but I did not care to argue with the Doctor on the meat question; or, indeed, on any other. To tell truth, I was afraid of the man. He was bigger than I, and had a thundering voice; and the probability of his getting up and thrashing me if I was at all obstinate about the mutton seemed by no means remote. I was never so completely put down in my life, save once in Canada, where I met, and was contradicted by, a gentleman who had been a Recorder. He was only a Colonial, it is true; but...