_Land._: “What then? Take old Pry’s advice, and never mind it. Don’t scorch your crackling for ’em, sir.” _Mr. H._: “Scorch my crackling! A queer phrase; but I suppose he don’t mean to affront me.” _Land._: “What is done can’t be undone; you can’t make a silken purse out of a sow’s ear.” _Mr. H._: “As you say, landlord, thinking of a thing does but augment it.” _Land._: “Does but _hogment_ it, indeed, sir.” _Mr. H._: “_Hogment_ it! I said _augment_ it.” _Land._: “Ah, sir, ’tis not everybody has such gift of fine phrases as your honour, that can lard his discourse.” _Mr. H._: “Lard!” _Land._: “Suppose they do smoke you—” _Mr. H._: “Smoke me!” _Land._: “Anon, anon.” _Mr. H._: “Oh, I wish I were anonymous!” It is curious to notice that many objectionable names still exist, simply because the words themselves have become obsolete, and the meaning forgotten. We will leave them in their obscurity. CHAPTER III. IMMIGRATION AND EMIGRATION. I SAID in my last chapter that nearly half of the names in the London Directory are of local origin, and I proved my statement by an appeal to certain figures. We have not all the brand of Cain on our brow, but certainly man has ever been “a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth.” History, sacred and profane, teems with the records of the flights of nations from one land to another. From the days of the Israelites’ escape from Egypt to the flight of the Huguenots from France, there have been emigrations which have been the direct results of persecution. From the year that saw Babel erected and the language confounded, the races of mankind have struck out a path for themselves in one direction or another of the earth’s vast continent. The curious feature is this,—It is to the _dictionary_ we must go to discover whence each several horde set forth. The _language_ of every nation clearly tells where lies the cradle of its birth. But emigration and immigration lie not alone with nationalities. The world has not always been a vagabond _en masse_. From the day that Jacob started for the East to find his uncle, from the morn that saw Ruth clinging to Naomi, while she said, “Whither thou goest I will go, and where thou lodgest I will lodge,” there has ever been going on a wondrous silent efflux or influx of _individual_ wanderers. Just as the mother-bird at the proper time, with seeming stern but true maternal instinct, pushes out her fledgling brood to seek a home and sustenance for themselves, so it has ever been with man. To go forth and replenish the earth has been a Divine fiat which none could forego. And what the _dictionary_ is to the nation, the _directory_ is to the individual. In the name of each we know the land, the city, the hamlet, whence each set forward to battle with the world. At any rate, this is strictly true of all local surnames.