Is that clear, or
would you like it all in words of four syllables?"
"Your assumptions are deliciously sweeping, but may I point out that a
decent and--the dear old Abbot of Wilton would have put it in his resonant
monkish Latin much better than I can--a scholarly reserve, does not
necessarily connote blank vacuity of mind on all subjects."
"Ah, the dear old Abbot of Wilton," said the Rat sympathetically, as one
nursed in that bosom. "Charmin' fellow--thorough scholar and gentleman.
Such a pity!"
"Oh, Sacred Fountains!" the Waters were fairly boiling. "He goes out of
his way to expose his ignorance by triple bucketfuls. He creaks to high
Heaven that he is hopelessly behind the common order of things! He invites
the streams of Five Watersheds to witness his su-su-su-pernal
incompetence, and then he talks as though there were untold reserves of
knowledge behind him that he is too modest to bring forward. For a bland,
circular, absolutely sincere impostor, you're a miracle, O Wheel!"
"I do not pretend to be anything more than an integral portion of an
accepted and not altogether mushroom institution."
"Quite so," said the Waters. "Then go round--hard----"
"To what end?" asked the Wheel.
"Till a big box of tanks in your house begins to fizz and fume--gassing is
the proper word."
"It would be," said the Cat, sniffing.
"That will show that your accumulators are full.
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