But said one of the four servants, “Unless, indeed, this is a deliberate joke, I cannot bring myself to believe that men so intelligent as those present are, or seem to be, can venture to declare and assert that this is not a basin, and that not a packsaddle; but as I perceive that they do assert and declare it, I can only come to the conclusion that there is some mystery in this persistence in what is so opposed to the evidence of experience and truth itself; for I swear by”⁠—and here he rapped out a round oath⁠—“all the people in the world will not make me believe that this is not a barber’s basin and that a jackass’s packsaddle.”

“It might easily be a she-ass’s,” observed the curate.

“It is all the same,” said the servant; “that is not the point; but whether it is or is not a packsaddle, as your worships say.”