Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, The basis or substratum—what you will— Of the impending eighty thousand lines. “Not much in ’em either,” quoth perhaps simple Hodge. But there’s a superstructure. Wait a bit.
Mark first the rationale of the thing: Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. That shilling—and for matter o’ that, the pence— I had o’ course upo’ me—wi’ me say— (_Mecum’s_ the Latin, make a note o’ that) When I popp’d pen i’ stand, scratch’d ear, wiped snout, (Let everybody wipe his own himself) Sniff’d—tch!—at snuffbox; tumbled up, he-heed, Haw-haw’d (not hee-haw’d, that’s another guess thing:) Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, I shoved the timber ope wi’ my omoplat; And _in vestibulo_, i’ the lobby to-wit, (Iacobi Facciolati’s rendering, sir,) Donn’d galligaskins, antigropeloes, And so forth; and, complete with hat and gloves, One on and one a-dangle i’ my hand, And ombrifuge (Lord love you!), case o’ rain, I flopp’d forth, ’sbuddikins! on my own ten toes, (I do assure you there be ten of them), And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale To find myself o’ the sudden i’ front o’ the boy. Put case I hadn’t ’em on me, could I ha’ bought This sort-o’-kind-o’-what-you-might-call toy, This pebble-thing, o’ the boy-thing? Q. E. D. That’s proven without aid from mumping Pope, Sleek porporate or bloated Cardinal. (Isn’t it, old Fatchaps? You’re in Euclid now.) So, having the shilling—having i’ fact a lot— And pence and halfpence, ever so many o’ them, I purchased, as I think I said before, The pebble (_lapis_, _lapidis_, _-di_, _-dem_, _-de_— What nouns ’crease short i’ the genitive, Fatchaps, eh?) O’ the boy, a bare-legg’d beggarly son of a gun, For one-and-fourpence. Here we are again.
Now Law steps in, bigwigg’d, voluminous-jaw’d; Investigates and re-investigates. Was the transaction illegal? Law shakes head. Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case.
At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. But now (by virtue of the said exchange And barter) _vice versa_ all the coin, _Per juris operationem_, vests I’ the boy and his assigns till ding o’ doom; (_In sæcula sæculo-o-o-orum_; I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.) To have and hold the same to him and them . . . _Confer_ some idiot on Conveyancing. Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, And all that appertaineth thereunto, _Quodcunque pertinet ad eam rem_, (I fancy, sir, my Latin’s rather pat) Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would or should, (_Subaudi cætera_—clap we to the close— For what’s the good of law in a case o’ the kind) Is mine to all intents and purposes. This settled, I resume the thread o’ the tale.