"We all improve by travelling, sir, and I make no question that my knowledge of foreign language is considerably enlarged by practice in the countries in which they are spoken." Here the reading of the journal was interrupted by a digression on language, in which Messrs. Dodge, Monday, Templemore, and Truck were the principal interlocutors, and during which the pitcher of punch was twice renewed. We shall not record much of this learned discussion, which was singularly common-place, though a few of the remarks may be given as a specimen of the whole. "I must be permitted to say," replied Mr. Monday to one of Mr. Dodge's sweeping claims to superiority in favour of his own nation, "that I think it quite extraordinary an Englishman should be obliged to go out of his own country in order to hear his own language spoken in purity; and as one who has seen your people, Mr. Dodge, I will venture to affirm that nowhere is English better spoken than in Lancashire. Sir George, I drink your health!" "More patriotic than just, Mr. Monday; every body allows that the American of the eastern states speaks the best English in the world, and I think either of these gentlemen will concede that." "Under the penalty of being nobody," cried Captain Truck; "for my own part, I think, if a man wishes to hear the language in perfection, he ought to pass a week or ten days in the river. I must say, Mr. Dodge, I object to many of your sounds, particularly that of inyon, which I myself heard you call onion, no later than yesterday." "Mr. Monday is a little peculiar in fancying that the best English is to be met with in Lancashire," observed Sir George Templemore; "for I do assure you that, in town, we have difficulty in understanding gentlemen from your part of the kingdom." This was a hard cut from one in whom Mr. Monday expected to find an ally, and that gentleman was driven to washing down the discontent it excited, in punch. "But all this time we have interrupted the _convoi_, or convoy, captain," said Mr. Sharp; "and Mr. Dodge, to say nothing of the mourners, has every right to complain. I beg that gentleman will proceed with his entertaining extracts." Mr. Dodge hemmed, sipped a little more liquor, blew his nose, and continued: "'The celebrated cemetery is, indeed, worthy of its high reputation. The utmost republican simplicity prevails in the interments, ditches being dug in which the bodies are laid, side by side, without distinction of rank, and with regard only to the order in which the convoys arrive.' I think this sentence, gentlemen, will have great success in America, where the idea of any exclusiveness is quite odious to the majority." "Well, for my part," said the captain, "I should have no particular objection to being excluded from such a grave: one would be afraid of catching the cholera in so promiscuous a company." Mr. Dodge turned over a few leaves, and gave other extracts.