Nearly the whole stock which exists up and down the market of Irish bulls, _Sawniana_, gasconades, gaulardisms, and _Mrs. Partingtoniana_, has submitted to the churn. A pattern is produced; and any given or desired number of impressions may be had to order--no two alike exactly, and no two very different. Which was the absolute _jocus princeps_ about the Scotch, it is probably at this time impossible to discover; but it is obvious that they are all grafted on one parent stem, and scarcely yield a second moral. The entire assemblage forms a satirical exposure of the alleged parsimonious egotism of the nation. _Ex uno disce omnes_:-- “A Scotch pedestrian, attacked by three highwaymen, defended himself with great courage and obstinacy, but was at length overpowered and his pockets rifled. The robbers expected, from the extraordinary resistance they had experienced, to lay their hands on some rich booty, but were not a little surprised to discover that the whole treasure which the sturdy Caledonian had been defending at the hazard of his life, consisted of no more than a crooked sixpence. ‘The deuce is in him,’ said one of the rogues; ‘if he had had eighteenpence, I suppose he would have killed the whole of us.’” And it is the same with another group, to which I have lately adverted:-- “‘Soldiers must be fearfully dishonest,’ says Mrs. Partington, ‘as it seems to be a nightly occurrence for a sentry to be relieved of his watch.’” Mrs. Partington was nothing more than a lay-figure, on which the ingenious could pass off the _jeu de mot_, which begins to form an element in the _facetiæ_ of the seventeenth century. She was a convenient personification, like her successors Mrs. Gamp and Mrs. Brown. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER IX. THE MARRED ANECDOTE--GAULARDISMS--M. GOUSSAUT--THE RETORT AND THE PUN--“MALONIANA”--METRICAL ADAPTATIONS--SECOND-HAND FACETIÆ-- PARALLEL VERSIONS. A singular _lusus artis_ is the marred anecdote, of which the most familiar specimen is the threadbare story of Goldsmith and the stale greens. But this was a very old Joe, and seems to have been first narrated in connection with a couple of scholars, of whom one laughing at the other because his garment was too short, his companion remarked that it would be _long enough_ before he got another. The next person whom he met became the recipient of a version of the matter immaterially varied, yet so as to give the death-blow to the witticism. “Jack,” quoth he, “I’ve just heard such a capital joke.” “What was it?” “Why, I told Tom that his coat was too short, and he answered that it would be _a long time_ before he got another.” “Well, I don’t see anything in that.” “Ah! well,” returned the first, “it seemed a very good joke when he made it.”