_Dame Ap-Asq-th loquitur_:--
_Not_ the Learned Pig, ladies and gentlemen, this time. Oh dear no! I
should think the public had had about enough of him for some time to
come, and---- Oh, I forgot! (_Aside: He'll have to be trotted out again
presently, so I'd better shut up, and not spoil the market for_
Misther O'MORLEY.) As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen, not the
Learned Irish Pig, but the Learned Welsh Goat!
A goat, you know, is a nimble creature, which, in a state of nature,
mounts pinnacles, and leaps from rock to rock, like the poor gentleman
in the _Contrabandista_. This one could climb a church steeple, and
balance itself on the weathercock--if permitted to do so. Couldn't
you, TAFFY? (_Aside: I hope the blessed brute won't butt me. He's been
a bit restive of late._)
No, ladies and gentlemen, _Esmeralda's_ goat was really not in it with
mine, for nimbleness and _nous_, much less the goat in _Dinorah_. As
to _Robinson Crusoe's_ much talked of animal---- Here, I say, TAFFY!
_Crwych llnwyddfohw ychonbompthyy kckonobommthygy!_ That means, "Mind
your 'p's' and 'q's'," ladies and gentlemen, or, in Welsh, "Mind your
'l's' and 'y's.'" But _my_ goat understands English quite well, as
you'll see presently, and, moreover, is not, as Lord ROSEBERY says
most _other_ members of the Liberal Party are, floored by words of two
syllables. TAFFY is equal to _five_--at least! Most Welsh words, you
know, are in about twenty. At east, they _look_ so, to non-Welshers--I
mean, non-Welshmen. (_Aside: Hope they won't ask me what is the Welsh
for "Ploughing the Sands"!_)
Now, you see, ladies and gentlemen, here are sixteen letters,
scattered, "in pie," as it were, forming a word of five syllables,
which has been familiar in our mouths as "All the Year Round"--I mean
household words--of late. (_Aside: Indeed it has! And if they knew
what a bore it has become in Cabinet Councils and other places where
they squabble---- Well, no matter!_) Behold the letters, ladies and
gentlemen!