{9} Hereupon the Arabian author enters on one of his digressions.
Fearing, apparently, that the somewhat eccentric views of Mr. Somerset
should throw discredit on a part of truth, he calls upon the English
people to remember with more gratitude the services of the police; to
what unobserved and solitary acts of heroism they are called; against
what odds of numbers and of arms, and for how small a reward, either in
fame or money: matter, it has appeared to the translators, too serious
for this place.
{43} In this name the accent falls upon the _e_; the _s_ is sibilant.
{176} The Arabian author of the original has here a long passage
conceived in a style too oriental for the English reader. We subjoin a
specimen, and it seems doubtful whether it should be printed as prose or
verse: ‘Any writard who writes dynamitard shall find in me a
never-resting fightard;’ and he goes on (if we correctly gather his
meaning) to object to such elegant and obviously correct spellings as
lamp-lightard, corn-dealard, apple-filchard (clearly justified by the
parallel—pilchard) and opera dancard. ‘Dynamitist,’ he adds, ‘I could
understand.’
{182} The Arabian author, with that quaint particularity of touch which
our translation usually prætermits, here registers a somewhat interesting
detail. Zero pronounced the word ‘boom;’ and the reader, if but for the
nonce, will possibly consent to follow him.