... Stay! Did not Willoughby himself somewhere
introduce an anecdote of a distinctly humorous nature?
"It ain't much," said Buck, dropping Thackeray to the floor. "I read the
whole thing once.--No, I guess I'm thinkin' of _The County Fair_, a
drammer that I saw at the Bee-jou. But I guess they're all the same,
those Fairs."
"Say Doc," he went on presently, "I'm going to double you on Number
Seven, beginning from to-morrow, hear?"
Number Seven was one of the stiffest of Klinker's Exercises for All
Parts of the Body. Queed looked up absently.
"That's right," said his trainer, inexorably. "It's just what you need.
I had a long talk with Smithy, last night."
"Buck," said the Doctor, clearing his throat, "have I ever--ahem--told
you of the famous reply of Dr. Johnson to the Billingsgate fishwives?"
"Johnson? Who? Fat, sandy-haired man lives on Third Street?"
"No, Dr. Samuel Johnson, the well-known English author and--character.
It is related that on one occasion Dr. Johnson approached the fishwives
at Billingsgate to purchase of their wares. The exact details of the
story are not altogether clear in my memory, but, as I recall it,
something the good Doctor said angered these women, for they began
showering him with profane and blasphemous names.
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