To leap about to the sound of tittering music,
preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or
daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all
those requiring the participation of the two sexes have
two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously
innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.
A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent. This
period is divided into two parts, the day proper and
the night, or day improper the
former devoted to sins of business, the latter
consecrated to the other sort. These two kinds of
social activity overlap.
An ingenious substitute for the chain and whip of the
slave-driver.
As, pent in an aquarium, the troutlet
Swims round and round his tank to find an
outlet,
Pressing his nose against the glass that holds
him,
Nor ever sees the prison that enfolds him;
So the poor debtor, seeing naught around him,
Yet feels the narrow limits that impound him,
Grieves at his debt and studies to evade it,
And finds at last he might as well have paid it.
To lie about another. To tell the truth about another.
Unable to attack.
The act of examining one's bread to determine which
side it is buttered on.
The father of a most respectable family, comprising
Enthusiasm, Affection, Self-denial, Faith, Hope,
Charity and many other goodly sons and daughters.
All hail, Delusion! Were it not for thee
The world turned topsy-turvy we should see;
For Vice, respectable with cleanly fancies,
Would fly abandoned Virtue's gross advances.
A prestidigitator who, putting metal into your mouth,
pulls coins out of your pocket.
The singular of "dice." We seldom hear the word,
because there is a prohibitory proverb, "Never say
die." At long intervals, however, some one says: "The
die is cast," which is not true, for it is cut. The
word is found in an immortal couplet by that eminent
poet and domestic economist, Senator Depew:
A cube of cheese no larger than a die
May bait the trap to catch a nibbling mie.
The patriotic art of lying for one's country.
The only thing that the rich are willing for the poor
to call theirs, and keep.