he top of his voice,
_outside_, and little more than a three-headed puppy, or a seven-legged
lamb (not in vigorous life, as shown upon the canvas, but in glass and
spirits of wine) _within_. When, for example, you hear a man gawster
about his horsemanship, you may be sure that he will never be first over
a fence, unless it be some wee obstacle, which you could almost arrange
on a rocking-horse, and then he will rush wildly at it, as though he had
made up his mind to die; or, if his boasting be of cricket, you may
expect next morning to see him miss the first easy catch which comes.

I need hardly ask whether you have known, my reader, what it is to feel
yourself _gloppened_, as when in boyhood (if feminine, please ask your
brother), you had just finished your first pipe of the herb called shag,
and on your face a tablet of unutterable thoughts was traced, as
represented in that marvellous sketch by John Leech, "Old Bagshawe under
the influence of tobacco"; when you went forth with your mother for an
innings, as you hoped, at the confectioner's, and a second ditto at the
toyshop, and saw her ringing the dentist's bell; when you had carefully
adjusted that cracker to Mr. Nabal's knocker, and were lighting the
lucifer within the quiet seclusion of your cap, and suddenly the
knuckles of Mr. Nabal's left pressed rudely on your nape, and the thumb
and finger of his right essayed to meet each other through the lobe of
your ear; when your dearest friend, in the strictest confidence, and
having sworn you to secrecy, showed you a lock of gleaming hair, given
to him by the girl whom you adored.

And it was you, my Thomas, you,
The friend in whom my soul confided,
Who dared to gaze on her--to do,
I may say, much the same as I did.

Or when, in after-years, unequally mated, you groaned, with Parolles,
under the subjection of a stronger will, "a man that's married is a man
that's marred"; and it might be said of you, as once it was said by a
labourer of one of his neighbours (so have I read in a book about roses,
a charming volume, which should be on every table), "Bill has been and
married his mestur, and she has _gloppened_ him a goodish bit."

I remember an occasion when a gawsterer was gloppened sorely. There was
an ancient mansion, wainscoted and floored with shining oak, _glib_--I
have not heard that apposite, terse little monosyllable since I went
_slurring_ with the village boys--glib as glass; and in that ancient