Bowcocks" (tenants of the cottage adjoining her own),
"Bowcocks has been telling more lies; blessed are the parsecuted!"
Better open war than this dismal affectation of peace! Better to confess
ourselves _hity-tity_, and to raise a _hullabaloo_, than such _humbug_
as this!
I, the egotist, has for once nothing to say; but J recalls to me an
extract from a conversation which took place during one of my parochial
visitations.
_Pastor_.--"Did I not see old Nanny Smith talking with you at your door
just now?"
_Parishioner_.--"Oh yes, she wor' here not three minutes sin', and
_jabbering_, as usual, like a clamm'd [famished] jay in a wood; but when
she see your reverence coming up th' lane, th' old lass wor' gone in a
_jiffey_."
K makes no suggestions, and L but few. "I'll _lay_," has no reference to
eggs or to a recumbent posture, but implies a wager. Some years ago, I
was riding to the meet, and came up inaudibly, upon the wayside grass,
with two grooms on their masters' hunters, peering over their pummels at
a mounted horse in the distance before them and anxiously discussing his
identity. Just as I was passing the disputants, the one turned to the
other and said, "I shall _lay yer_ three threepenny gins to one as it's
Colonel's rat-tailed 'oss."
_Lig_ is still commonly used for "lie.
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