No More Learning

"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! " replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying
a pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down
the corners of his mouth--"ahem! " And "ahem! " said he again, after a
pause; and not another word more than "ahem! " did I ever know him to say
after that. "Aha! " thought I, without expressing myself aloud--"this is
quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt
a consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme
induces another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable
questions which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave
him my last lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals. "

"Ahem! " here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts,
and looking like a very old sheep in a revery.

The old gentleman now took him by the arm, and led him more into the
shade of the bridge--a few paces back from the turnstile. "My good
fellow," said he, "I make it a point of conscience to allow you this
much run.
Wait here, till I take my place by the stile, so that I may
see whether you go over it handsomely, and transcendentally, and don't
omit any flourishes of the pigeon-wing. A mere form, you know. I will
say 'one, two, three, and away. ' Mind you, start at the word 'away'"
Here he took his position by the stile, paused a moment as if in
profound reflection, then looked up and, I thought, smiled very
slightly, then tightened the strings of his apron, then took a long look
at Dammit, and finally gave the word as agreed upon-

_One--two--three--and--away! _

Punctually at the word "away," my poor friend set off in a strong
gallop. The stile was not very high, like Mr. Lord's--nor yet very low,
like that of Mr. Lord's reviewers, but upon the whole I made sure
that he would clear it. And then what if he did not? --ah, that was
the question--what if he did not? "What right," said I, "had the
old gentleman to make any other gentleman jump? The little old
dot-and-carry-one! who is he? If he asks me to jump, I won't do it,
that's flat, and I don't care who the devil he is. " The bridge, as I
say, was arched and covered in, in a very ridiculous manner, and there
was a most uncomfortable echo about it at all times--an echo which I
never before so particularly observed as when I uttered the four last
words of my remark.

But what I said, or what I thought, or what I heard, occupied only an
instant.