"Why, yer powder-yedded monkey, I never said noat o' sort; I appeal to
th' company!"

I have a loving faith in children. Mixing with them daily--in church, in
school, and at their play--I think that I know something about them; and
I maintain that a disagreeable child is a sorrowful exception to the
rule, and the result of mismanagement and foolish indulgences on the
part of parents and teachers. But when this abnormal nuisance is found,
a peevish, fretful child--a child who is always wanting to taste, a
child who ignores the admirable purposes for which pocket-handkerchiefs
were designed, such an _enfant terrible_ as he who told the kindly
mother, offering to bring her 'Gustus to join him in his play, that "if
you bring your 'Gustus here I shall make a slit in him with my new
knife, and let out his sawdust"--when, I repeat, we come in contact with
such an obnoxious precocity as this, what word can describe him so
satisfactorily as the monosyllable--_brat_?

More detestable, because more powerful to do hurt, and with less excuse
for doing it, is _the Blab_; the unctuous, tattling Blab, who creeps to
your side with words softer than butter, but having war in his heart; he
"always thought that Sam Smith was such a friend of yours, and" (hardly
waiting for your "So he is") "was surprised and rather disgusted by his
remarks at the Club last Thursday." And then he tells you something
which, for a moment, and until principle prevails over passion, suggests
the removal by violence of several of Sam's teeth, and he leaves you
distressed and distrustful, until you discover, as you most probably
will, that there has been cruel misrepresentation. Ah, if poor
Jeannette's desire were realised, and they who make the quarrels were
the only men to fight, how nice it would be to sit upon an eminence and
watch the Battle of the Blabs!

There was a battle once on a small scale, the only rational duel ever
fought, in which a brace of Blabs were sweetly discomfited. They had
succeeded in separating "very friends," and had arranged a hostile
meeting; but, through the intervention of better men, and without their
cognisance, the principals entered into explanation, and, finding that
they had been misled, mutually agreed to fire at the seconds, who had
made the mischief. One Blab received a bullet in the calf of his leg,
and the other a _ping_ close to his whiskers; and then the combatants
said that their honour was satisfied, and the party