I.6§3 (FW 152.04 - 159.93)

^|1As my explanations ^|ahere^a| are probably above your understandings I shall revert to a method which I frequently use with muddleclass pupils. Imagine for my purpose that you are a squad of urchins, snifflynosed, gandernec goslingnecked, clothaired clottyheadedº, tingled on in your pants etc etc. And you, Jones Smith, take your tongue out of your inkpot! As none of you know javanese I will give you a free translation of ^|aan the^a| old fibulist.^1|

^|1The Fable of the Mookse and the Gripes. theº mookse and the gripes^1|

A Mookseº he would a walking go so one evening, having drubbed his eyes, ascented his nostrils, packed up his ears and comforted his throatº, he put on his impermeable^|1, seized his impugnable,º put his harp on harped on his crown^1| and stepped out of his immobile and set off ^|1a spasso^1| to see how badness was badness in the weirdest of all pensible ways. ^|1As he soº set off, with his father's sword he was girded on, and with that between his legs and his heels tarheelsº, the our great and only Breakespeare, heº looked clanked, to my clinking, every inch of an immortal.^1| He had not walked over a pair of parsecs when at the turning of the wrong lane ^|1near
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Saint Patrick's-without-his-walls Patrick's-without-his-Walls^1| he came
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upon the most unconsciously boggylooking stream he ever ^|1saw locked his eyes on^1|. It looked little and it smelt of brown and it thought narrow and it talked ^|1shallow showshallow^1|. And as it rinn it dribbled like any lively purl-it-easyº: My, my,º my! Me and me! Little down dream,º don't I love thee! And, I declare, what was there on the yonder bank of the stream that would be a river, parched on a limb of the olum but the Gripes? And no doubt he was fit to be dried for why had he not been having the juice of his times?

His pips had been neatly all drowned on him; his polps were charging odours every older minute; he was quickly for getting the dresser's desdaign on the flyleaf of his frons; and he was quietly for giving the bailiff's distrain on to the bulkside of his cul de pompe.º In all his specious heavings, as he lived by Optimus Maximus, the Mookse had never seen his brooder-on-low so nigh to a pickle.

^|1He Adrian (that was the Mookse's restingname)^1| stuck still phiz-à-phiz to the Gripes in an outfit of Aurignacian. He sor a stone and on that stone he sate his seat which it filled to its fullest justotoryum and whereupon with his unfallable upon his alloilable and the pederect he ^|1always^1| walked with cheek by jowl with his fresherman's blague, Bellua Triumphansº, he looked the last laical lakeness of Quartus the Fifth and Quintus the Sixth and Sixtus the Seventh giving allnight sitting to Leo the Faultyfindth.

— Good appetite us, Sirº Mookse! How do you do it? cheeped the Gripes in a wherry whiggy woice and the jackasses
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all within bawl laughed for they knew their sly toad lowry now. I am blessed to see you, my dear mister. Will you not perhopes tell me everything,º if you are pleased, sanity?

Think of it! A Gripesº!

— Rats! roared the Mookse and the mice quailed to hear him at all,º for you cannot wake a silken noise out of a hoarse oar. Blast yourself and your infairioriboos! No, hang you! I am superbly in my supremest poncif! Rot!

— I am till infinity obliged with you, bowed the Gripes, his whine having gone to his head. I am still always having a wish on all my extremities. By the watch, what is the time, pace?
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Figure it! To a Mookse!

— Ask my index!º answered the Mookse, rapidly byturningº clement, urban and celestian in the highest ofº goodhumour . Quote awhore? That is quite about what I came to settle with youº. Let there be orlog. Let here be Irene. Let you be Beeton. And let me be Los Angelos. Now measure your length!º Now estimate my capacity!º Well, sour? Is this space of our couple of hours too dimensional for you, temporiser? Will you give you up?

^|1Sanctaº Patientia!^1| You should have heard the voice that answered him!

— ^|1I was just thinking of that^|a, noble Mookse,^a| but^1| I can never give you up, the Gripes whimpered from theº nethermost of his wanhope. My temple is my own. But I will never be abler to tell you (here he near lost
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his limb) whose o'cloak you ware.

Incredible?º Well, hear the inevitable!º

— Myº building space is always to let to Menº, the Mookse concluded. (Whatº a crammer for the shapewrecked Gripes!)º And I regret to announce that I cannot see my way to help you from being killed by time (what a thrust!)º as we first met each other never so early. (Poor little squashed Gripesº! I begin to feel contemption for him!)º My side is as safe as houses, he continued, and I can see what it is to be seen. Parysis, tu sais, belongs to him who parises himself. I can prove that against you, my good enemy! I bet you this dozen of tomes.

Heº proved it ^|1to the extinction of Niklaus altogether (Niklaus ^|awas having been^a| the Gripes's hinder nimbum),º^1| by Neuclidius and by Inexagoras, byº Mummsen and byº Thumpson, by Orasmus and by ^|1O. Hone Amenius^1|. Andº after that he reproved it altogether by the binomial dioram and the penic walls and the inklespillº legends and the rule of the hoop and the blessons of expedience and the jugicants of Puncher's Pylax.

— In a thousand years^|1, Oh ^|aGripes Gropes^a|,º^1| you will be blind to the world,º said the Mookse.

— In a thousand years, replied the Gripes, ^|1|aOh Ah^a| Mookse,º^1| you may be stillº more bothered.º

— I shall be chosen as the first of the last by the electress of Vale Hallowº, said the Mookse nobly, for I am in the stabulary and that's what they all like best.º

— I, confessed the Gripes limply,º shall not even be the last of the first, I hope, when ^|1I am we are^1| visited by the veiled horrorº. And,º he added,º I am relying entirely upon the weightiness of my breath.º

And they villainised each andº other with the wildest ever wielded.

— Unicorn!

— Ungulant!

— Uvuloid!

— Uskybeak!
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Nuvoletta in her lightdress was looking down on them, leaning ^|1on over^1| the bannistars and listening all she childishly could. She was alone. All her nubied compinionsº were asleeping with the squirrels. Their mivver, Mrs Moonan, was off for the evening, scrubbing the backstepsº at Number 28. And as for fuvverº, he was up in Norwood's sokaparlor eatingº oceans of Voking's Blemish. ^|1She Nuvoletta^1| listened as she reflected herself, though the heavenly one with his constellatria and his emanationsº stood between,º and she tried all she tried to make the Mookse look up at her (but he was far too farseeing) and to make the Gripes hear how coy she was (though he was much too auricular about himself to heed her) but it was all child's vapour lost. Not even her ^|1dimmed^1| reflection^|1, Nuvoluccia,^1| could they takeº their noses off,º for their minds were beset with Heliogabolus and Commodus and Enobarbus and whatever they did as they said. She tried all the winsome wonsome ways her four winds had taught her. She tossed her hair like la princesse de Bretagne and she rounded her arms like Mrs Cornwallis-West and she smiled over herself like the beauty of the image of the pose of the daughter of the queen of the Emperor of Ireland and she sighed after herself as were she born
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to bride with Tristis ^|1Tristior^1| Tristissimus. But she might just as well have carried her daisy's grace to Florida. For the Mookse was not amused and the Gripes was painfully obliviscent. “I see,” she sighed.º “There are menner.”

The shades began to glidder along the banks, dusk unto dusk, and it was as gloomingº as gloaming could be in the waste of all peacable woldsº. The Mookseº had eyes yet but he wouldº not all hear. The Gripes had still ears ^|1but yet^1| he could but ill see. So heº ceased, andº he ceased,º andº it was ever so duskyº of both of them. But still one thought of the deeps he would profound on the morrow and still the other thought of the scrapes he would escape if he had luck enough.

O,º how it was dusk! It was so dusk that the tears of night began to fall, atº first by ones
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and twos, then by threes and fours, at last by fives and sixes of sevens, for the tired ones were weeping,º as we weep nowº with them. O!

Then there came down to the one bank a woman of no appearance (I believe she was a Black) and she gathered up the ^|1Moose Mookse^1| where he was spread and carried him away to her invisible dwelling for he was the holy sacred solemnº spit of her bushop's apron. ^|1So you see the Mookse he was right had reason as I knew and you knew and he knew all along.^1| And there came down to the other bank a woman to all important (still we are told that she is comely) and, for he was as like it as blow it to a hawker's hank, she plucked down the Gripes ^|1from his limb^1| and carried him away with her to her unseen
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shieling. ^|1And so the poor Gripes got wrong,º for that is how a Gripesº is, always was and always will be.^1| And it was never so thoughtful of either of them. And there were left now an only elmtree and but a stone ^|1and. O, yes!º And^1| Nuvoletta, a lass.

Then Nuvoletta reflected for the last time in her little long life and she made up all her myriads of minds in one. She climbed over the bannistars. Sheº gave a childish cloudy cry: Nuée! Nuée!º She was gone. And into the river that had been a stream (for the thousand years had come and gone)º there fell a tear, the loveliest of all tears ^|1(I mean for those who are “keen”º on the pretty-pretty sort of thing)^1| for it was a leap tear. But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh,º O weh! I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!