His anxiety, for instance,
when he read of the young aide--de--camp being shot and dragged by the
stirrup, to know "what became of the empty horse," was very
entertaining; and when he had read the description of Davoust's face and
person, where I describe his nose, as neither fine nor dumpy--a fair
enough proboscis as noses go, he laid down the Log with the most
laughable seriousness.
"Now," quoth he, "very inexplicit all this, Tom. Why, I am most curious
in noses. I judge of character altogether from the nose. I never lose
sight of a man's snout, albeit I never saw the tip of my own. You may
rely on it, that it is all a mistake to consider the regular Roman nose,
with a curve like a shoemaker's paring knife, or the straight Grecian,
with a thin transparent ridge, that you can see through, or the Deutsch
meerschaum, or the Saxon pump--handle, or the Scotch mull, or any other
nose, that can be taken hold of, as the standard gnomon. No, no; I
never saw a man with a large nose who was not a blockhead--eh! Gelid,
my love? The pimple for me--the regular pimple but allons."--And where,
having introduced the German refugees to Captain Deadeye, I go on to say
that I thereupon dived into the midshipmen's berth for a morsel of
comfort, and was soon "far into the secrets of a pork pie,"--he lay
back, and exclaimed with a long drawling emphasis--"A pork pie!"
"A pork pie!" said Paul Gelid.
"Why, do you know," said Mr Wagtail--"I--why, I never in all my life saw
a pork pie.
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