“And ozer countries?—” the foreign gentleman was beginning, when Mr. Podsnap put him right again.
“We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are T and H ; You say Tay and Aish, You Know; (still with clemency). The sound is th — th !”
“And other countries,” said the foreign gentleman. “They do how?”
“They do, Sir,” returned Mr. Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; “they do—I am sorry to be obliged to say it— as they do.”
“It was a little particular of Providence,” said the foreign gentleman, laughing; “for the frontier is not large.”
“Undoubtedly,” assented Mr. Podsnap; “But So it is. It was the Charter of the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir, to the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries as—as there may happen to be. And if we were all Englishmen present, I would say,” added Mr. Podsnap, looking round upon his compatriots, and sounding solemnly with his theme, “that there is in the Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an independence, a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything calculated to call a blush into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth.”
Having delivered this little summary, Mr. Podsnap’s face flushed, as he thought of the remote possibility of its being at all qualified by any prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favourite right-arm flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, Africa, and America nowhere.
The audience were much edified by this passage of words; and Mr. Podsnap, feeling that he was in rather remarkable force today, became smiling and conversational.
“Has anything more been heard, Veneering,” he inquired, “of the lucky legatee?”