ld as insiders, but whom young
Oxford called sometimes "Trojans," in opposition to our Grecian selves, and
sometimes "vermin." A Turkish Effendi, who piques himself on good breeding,
will never mention by name a pig. Yet it is but too often that he has
reason to mention this animal; since constantly, in the streets of
Stamboul, he has his trousers deranged or polluted by this vile creature
running between his legs. But under any excess of hurry he is always
careful, out of respect to the company he is dining with, to suppress the
odious name, and to call the wretch "that other creature," as though all
animal life beside formed one group, and this odious beast (to whom, as
Chrysippus observed, salt serves as an apology for a soul) formed another
and alien group on the outside of creation. Now I, who am an English
Effendi, that think myself to understand good-breeding as well as any son
of Othman, beg my reader's pardon for having mentioned an insider by his
gross natural name. I shall do so no more; and, if I should have occasion
to glance at so painful a subject, I shall always call him "that other
creature." Let us hope, however, that no such distressing occasion will
arise. But, by the way, an occasion arises at this moment; for the reader
will be sure to ask, when we come to the story, "Was this other creature
present?" He was _not_; or more correctly, perhaps, _it_ was not. We
dropped the creature--or the creature, by natural imbecility, dropped
itself--within the first ten miles from Manchester. In the latter case, I
wish to make a philosophic remark of a moral tendency. When I die, or when
the reader dies, and by repute suppose of fever, it will never be known
whether we died in reality of the fever or of the doctor. But this other
creature, in the case of dropping out of the coach, will enjoy a coroner's
inquest; consequently he will enjoy an epitaph. For I insist upon it, that
the verdict of a coroner's jury makes the best of epitaphs. It is brief, so
that the public all find time to read; it is pithy, so that the surviving
friends (if any _can_ survive such a loss) remember it without fatigue; it
is upon oath, so that rascals and Dr. Johnsons cannot pick holes in it.
"Died through the visitation of intense stupidity, by impinging on a
moonlight night against the off hind wheel of the Glasgow mail! Deodand
upon the said wheel--two-pence." What a simple lapidary inscription! Nobody
much in the wrong but an off-wheel