Think of
it, Don Bob,--for you in your day, as I in mine, have seen it. 'Tis so
much leather stripped from the innocent beast, and cured and colored
and polished and stamped to no purpose,--with a prodigious show of
empty compartments, like banquet-halls deserted. It has a clasp to
mount guard over nothing,--a clasp made of steel digged from the bowels
of the earth, and smelted and hammered and burnished, only to keep
watch and ward after the thief has made his visit leisurely. 'Tis an
egregious chaos. 'Tis an absurd vacuum. To make it still more
unpleasant, there are your memoranda. You are reminded that upon
Thursday last you purchased butter flavous, or chops rosy; but where is
hint, sign, direction, or instruction touching the purchase of either
upon Thursday next? How much would it have helped poor Belisarius, in
his sore estate, if he had kept a record of his household expenses, as
my friend Minimus does? By the same token, he sometimes makes odd
misentries, pious figurative fictions, in order to save the feelings of
Mrs. Minimus, who is auditor-general and comptroller of the household.
And speaking of Belisarius, just fancy the hard fate of that gallant
and decayed soldier! Figure him left naked by the master whom he had
served so well, crying out for a beggarly _obolus_! Now this, you must
know, was one of the least respectable coins of ancient times, being of
about the value of one farthing sterling.
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