The little man turned round mechanically towards him, as Maelzel's Turk
used to turn, carrying his head slowly and horizontally, as if it went
by cogwheels.--Cracking up all sorts of things,--native and foreign
vermin included,--said the little man.
This remark was thought by some of us to have a hidden personal
application, and to afford a fair opening for a lively rejoinder, if
the Koh-i-noor had been so disposed. The little man uttered it with the
distinct wooden calmness with which the ingenious Turk used to exclaim,
_E-chec_! so that it _must_ have been heard. The party supposed to be
interested in the remark was, however, carrying a large
knife-blade-full of something to his mouth just then, which, no doubt,
interfered with the reply he would have made.
----My friend who used to board here was accustomed sometimes, in a
pleasant way, to call himself the _Autocrat_ of the table,--meaning, I
suppose, that he had it all his own way among the boarders. I think our
small boarder here is like to prove a refractory subject, if I
undertake to use the sceptre my friend meant to bequeathe me, too
magisterially. I won't deny that sometimes, on rare occasions, when I
have been in company with gentlemen who _preferred_ listening, I have
been guilty of the same kind of usurpation which my friend openly
justified.
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