Another said that, indeed, Bullet-head had shown much X-uberance of fancy.
A third admitted him X-entric, but no more.
A fourth could only suppose it the Yankee’s design to X-press, in a general way, his X-asperation.
“Say, rather, to set an X-ample to posterity,” suggested a fifth.
That Bullet-head had been driven to an extremity, was clear to all; and in fact, since that editor could not be found, there was some talk about lynching the other one.
The more common conclusion, however, was that the affair was, simply, X-traordinary and in-X-plicable. Even the town mathematician confessed that he could make nothing of so dark a problem. X , everybody knew, was an unknown quantity; but in this case (as he properly observed), there was an unknown quantity of X .
The opinion of Bob, the devil (who kept dark about his having “X-ed the paragrab”), did not meet with so much attention as I think it deserved, although it was very openly and very fearlessly expressed. He said that, for his part, he had no doubt about the matter at all, that it was a clear case, that Mr. Bullet-head “never could be persuaded fur to drink like other folks, but vas con tinually a-svigging o’ that ere blessed XXX ale, and as a naiteral consekvence, it just puffed him up savage, and made him X (cross) in the X-treme.”