Читать книгу Scotch Wit and Humor - Howe Walter Henry - Страница 54

On my first visit to Edinburgh, having heard a great deal of the oratorical powers of some of the members of the General Assembly, I was anxious to hear and judge for myself. I accordingly paid an early visit to it. Seated next me I saw an elderly, hard-featured, sober-looking man, leaning with both hands on a stick and eyeing the stick with great earnestness, scarcely even moving his eyes to right or left.

My attention was soon directed to the speaker above me, who had opened the discourse of the day. The fervidness of his eloquence, his great command of language, and the strangeness of his manner excited my attention in an unusual degree. I wished to know who he was, and applied to my neighbor, the sober-looking, hard-featured man.

"Pray, sir, can you tell me who is speaking now?"

The man turned on me a defiant and contemptuous look for my ignorance, and answered, looking reverently at the cane on which his hands were imposed: "Sir, that's the great Docther Chawmers, and I'm haudin' his stick!" [16]