Punch, Or The London Charivari

time at the rate of a hundred words a minute, the substantives being occasionally expressed, but mostly "understood,"--pronouns and prepositions being omitted wholesale.

"What! DAUBINET!" I exclaim, he being the last person I had expected to see, having, indeed, a letter on my desk from him, dated yesterday and delivered this morning, to that he was then, at the moment of writing, and practically therefore for the next forty-eight hours--at least; so it would be with any ordinary individual--in Edinburgh. But DAUBINET is not an ordinary individual, and the ordinary laws of motion to and from any given point do not apply to him. He is a Flying Frenchman--here, there, and everywhere; especially everywhere. So mercurial, that he will be in advance of Mercury himself, and having written a letter in the morning to say he is coming, it is not unlikely that he will travel by the next train, arrive before the letter, and then wonder that you weren't prepared to receive him. Such, in a brief sketch, is mon ami