but I dare conjecture we may find them inclusive, or _totidem syllabis_.”
This distinction was immediately approved by all; and so they fell again
to examine the will. But their evil star had so directed the matter that
the first syllable was not to be found in the whole writing; upon which
disappointment, he who found the former evasion took heart, and said,
“Brothers, there is yet hopes; for though we cannot find them _totidem
verbis_ nor _totidem syllabis_, I dare engage we shall make them out
_tertio modo_ or _totidem literis_.” This discovery was also highly
commended, upon which they fell once more to the scrutiny, and soon
picked out S, H, O, U, L, D, E, R, when the same planet, enemy to their
repose, had wonderfully contrived that a K was not to be found. Here was
a weighty difficulty! But the distinguishing brother (for whom we shall
hereafter find a name), now his hand was in, proved by a very good
argument that K was a modern illegitimate letter, unknown to the learned
ages, nor anywhere to be found in ancient manuscripts. “It is true,”
said he, “the word _Calendæ_, had in Q. V. C. {76} been sometimes writ
with a K, but erroneously, for in the best copies it is ever spelt with a
C; and by consequence it was a gross mistake in our language to spell
‘knot’ with a K,” but that from henceforward he would take care it should
be writ with a C. Upon this all further difficulty vanished;
shoulder-knots were made clearly out to be _jure paterno_, and our three
gentlemen swaggered with as large and as flaunting ones as the best.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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