"By shaming Miss Smart into repentance, or getting him a new sweetheart?" asked my uncle. "Pooh!" answered Squills, "by quinine and cold bathing." "We may therefore grant," renewed my father, "that, as a general rule, the process of courtship tends to the spruceness, and even foppery, of the individual engaged in the experiment, as Voltaire has very prettily proved somewhere. Nay, the Mexicans, indeed, were of opinion that the lady at least ought to continue those cares of her person even after marriage. There is extant, in Sahagun's _History of New Spain_, the advice of an Aztec or Mexican mother to her daughter, in which she says--'That your husband may not take you in dislike, adorn yourself, wash yourself, and let your garments be clean.' It is true that the good lady adds,--'Do it in moderation; since, if every day you are washing yourself and your clothes, the world will say that you are over-delicate; and particular people will call you--TAPETZON TINEMÁXOCH!' What those words precisely mean," added my father modestly, "I cannot say, since I never had the opportunity to acquire the ancient Aztec language--but something very opprobrious and horrible, no doubt." "I daresay a philosopher like Signior Riccabocca," said my uncle, "was not himself very _Tapetzon tine_--what d'ye call it?--and a good healthy English wife, like that poor affectionate Jemima, was thrown away upon him." "Roland," said my father, "you don't like foreigners: a respectable prejudice, and quite natural in a man who has been trying his best to hew them in pieces, and blow them up into splinters. But you don't like philosophers either--and for that dislike you have no equally good reason." "I only implied that they were not much addicted to soap and water," said my uncle. "A notable mistake. Many great philosophers have been very great beaux. Aristotle was a notorious fop. Buffon put on his best laced ruffles when he sat down to write, which implies that he washed his hands first. Pythagoras insists greatly on the holiness of frequent ablutions; and Horace--who, in his own way, was as good a philosopher as any the Romans produced--takes care to let us know what a neat, well-dressed, dapper little gentleman he was. But I don't think you ever read the 'Apology of Apuleius?'" "Not I--what is it about?" asked the Captain.