I wish, said my father, raising his voice, the whole science of
fortification at the devil, with all its trumpery of saps, mines,
blinds, gabions, fausse-brays and cuvetts——
——They are foolish things——said my mother.
Now she had a way, which, by the bye, I would this moment give away my
purple jerkin, and my yellow slippers into the bargain, if some of your
reverences would imitate—and that was, never to refuse her assent and
consent to any proposition my father laid before her, merely because
she did not understand it, or had no ideas of the principal word or
term of art, upon which the tenet or proposition rolled. She contented
herself with doing all that her godfathers and godmothers promised for
her—but no more; and so would go on using a hard word twenty years
together—and replying to it too, if it was a verb, in all its moods and
tenses, without giving herself any trouble to enquire about it.
This was an eternal source of misery to my father, and broke the neck,
at the first setting out, of more good dialogues between them, than
could have done the most petulant contradiction——the few which survived
were the better for the _cuvetts_——
—“They are foolish things;” said my mother.
——Particularly the _cuvetts;_ replied my father.
’Tis enough—he tasted the sweet of triumph—and went on.
—Not that they are, properly speaking, Mrs. _Wadman_’s premises, said
my father, partly correcting himself—because she is but tenant for
life——
——That makes a great difference—said my mother——
—In a fool’s head, replied my father——