S’death! cried my great-grandfather, clapping his hand upon his nose,—’tis not so small as that comes to;——’tis a full inch longer than my father’s.—Now, my great-grandfather’s nose was for all the world like unto the noses of all the men, women, and children, whom _Pantagruel_ found dwelling upon the island of ENNASIN.——By the way, if you would know the strange way of getting a-kin amongst so flat-nosed a people——you must read the book;——find it out yourself, you never can.—— —’Twas shaped, Sir, like an ace of clubs. —’Tis a full inch, continued my grandfather, pressing up the ridge of his nose with his finger and thumb; and repeating his assertion——’tis a full inch longer, madam, than my father’s——You must mean your uncle’s, replied my great-grandmother. ——My great-grandfather was convinced.—He untwisted the paper, and signed the article. C H A P. XXVI ——WHAT an unconscionable jointure, my dear, do we pay out of this small estate of ours, quoth my grandmother to my grandfather. My father, replied my grandfather, had no more nose, my dear, saving the mark, than there is upon the back of my hand. —Now, you must know, that my great-grandmother outlived my grandfather twelve years; so that my father had the jointure to pay, a hundred and fifty pounds half-yearly—(on _Michaelmas_ and _Lady-day_,)—during all that time. No man discharged pecuniary obligations with a better grace than my father.——And as far as a hundred pounds went, he would fling it upon the table, guinea by guinea, with that spirited jerk of an honest welcome, which generous souls, and generous souls only, are able to fling down money: but as soon as ever he enter’d upon the odd fifty—he generally gave a loud _Hem!_ rubb’d the side of his nose leisurely with the flat part of his fore finger——inserted his hand cautiously betwixt his head and the cawl of his wig—look’d at both sides of every guinea as he parted with it——and seldom could get to the end of the fifty pounds, without pulling out his handkerchief, and wiping his temples. Defend me, gracious Heaven! from those persecuting spirits who make no allowances for these workings within us.—Never—O never may I lay down in their tents, who cannot relax the engine, and feel pity for the force of education, and the prevalence of opinions long derived from ancestors! For three generations at least this tenet in favour of long noses had gradually been taking root in our family.——TRADITION was all along on its side, and INTEREST was every half-year stepping in to strengthen it; so that the whimsicality of my father’s brain was far from having the whole honour of this, as it had of almost all his other strange notions.—For in a great measure he might be said to have suck’d this in with his mother’s milk. He did his part however.——If education planted the mistake (in case it was one) my father watered it, and ripened it to perfection.