The man smilt, and said I didn't understand these things. He said I perhaps had not noticed in London that dealers in all sorts of articles was By Appintment. I said, "Oh, hadn't I?" Then a sudden thought flasht over me. "I have it!" I said. "When the Prince walks through a street, he no doubt looks at the shop windows."
"And the enterprisin tradesman," I continnerd, "the moment the Prince gets out of sight, rushes frantically and has a tin sign painted, By Appintment, H.R.H.! It is a beautiful, a great idee!"
I then bought a pair of shoe strings, and wringin the shopman's honest hand, I started for the Tomb of Shakspeare in a hired fly. It look't however more like a spider.
"And this," I said, as I stood in the old church-yard at Stratford, beside a Tombstone, "this marks the spot where lies William W. Shakspeare. Alars! and this is the spot where--"
"You've got the wrong grave," said a man--a worthy villager: "Shakspeare is buried inside the church."
"Oh," I said, "a boy told me this was it." The boy larfed and put the shillin I'd given him onto his left eye in a inglorious manner, and commenced moving backwards towards the street.
I pursood and captered him, and after talking to him a spell in a skarcastic stile, I let him went.
The old church was damp and chill. It was rainin. The only persons there when I entered was a fine bluff old gentleman who was talking in a excited manner to a fashnibly dressed young man.
"No, Earnest Montresser," the old gentleman said, "it is idle to pursoo this subjeck no further. You can never marry my daughter. You were seen last Monday in Piccadilly without a umbreller! I said then, as I say now, any young man as venturs out in a uncertain climit like this without a umbreller, lacks foresight, caution, strength of mind and stability; and he is not a proper person to intrust a daughter's happiness to."
I slapt the old gentleman on the shoulder, and I said: "You're right! You're one of those kind of men, you are--"
He wheeled suddenly round, and in a indignant voice, said, "Go way--go way! This is a privit intervoo."
I didn't stop to enrich the old gentleman's mind with my conversation. I sort of inferred that he wasn't inclined to listen to me, and so I went on. But he was right about the umbreller. I'm really delighted with this grand old country, "Mr. Punch," but you must admit that it does rain rayther numerously here. Whether this is owing to a monerkal form of gov'ment or not I leave all candid and onprejudiced persons to say.
