No More Learning

I was about to reply, notwithstanding my previous resolutions, with some
remonstrance against his impiety, when I heard, close at my elbow, a
slight cough, which sounded very much like the ejaculation "ahem! " I
started, and looked about me in surprise. My glance at length fell into
a nook of the frame--work of the bridge, and upon the figure of a little
lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend
than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black,
but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned very neatly down
over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's.
His hands were clasped pensively together over his stomach, and his two
eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head.

Upon observing him more closely, I perceived that he wore a black silk
apron over his small-clothes; and this was a thing which I thought very
odd. Before I had time to make any remark, however, upon so singular a
circumstance, he interrupted me with a second "ahem! "

To this observation I was not immediately prepared to reply. The fact
is, remarks of this laconic nature are nearly unanswerable. I have known
a Quarterly Review non-plussed by the word "Fudge! " I am not ashamed to
say, therefore, that I turned to Mr. Dammit for assistance.

"Dammit," said I, "what are you about? don't you hear? --the gentleman
says 'ahem!
'" I looked sternly at my friend while I thus addressed him;
for, to say the truth, I felt particularly puzzled, and when a man is
particularly puzzled he must knit his brows and look savage, or else he
is pretty sure to look like a fool.

"Dammit," observed I--although this sounded very much like an oath, than
which nothing was further from my thoughts--"Dammit," I suggested--"the
gentleman says 'ahem! '"

I do not attempt to defend my remark on the score of profundity; I did
not think it profound myself; but I have noticed that the effect of our
speeches is not always proportionate with their importance in our own
eyes; and if I had shot Mr. D. through and through with a Paixhan bomb,
or knocked him in the head with the "Poets and Poetry of America," he
could hardly have been more discomfited than when I addressed him with
those simple words: "Dammit, what are you about? --don't you hear? --the
gentleman says 'ahem! '"

"You don't say so? " gasped he at length, after turning more colors than
a pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. "Are
you quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and
may as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then--ahem! "

At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased--God only knows why.
He left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a
gracious air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially,
looking all the while straight up in his face with an air of the most
unadulterated benignity which it is possible for the mind of man to
imagine.

"I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit," said he, with the frankest of
all smiles, "but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake
of mere form. "

"Ahem!