I implored them all to take pattern by me; promising, in the end, that their new friends would trebly prize their hardihood, self-denial, and skill.
There was a new member of the academy of Latent Sympathies to be received and installed.

A long discourse was read by one of this department of the monikin learning, which pointed out and enlarged on the rare merits of the new academician.

He was followed by the latter; who in a very elaborate production, that consumed just fifty-five minutes in the reading, tried all he could to persuade the audience that the defunct was a loss to the world, that no accident or application would ever repair, and that he himself was precisely the worst person who could have been selected to be his successor.

I was a little surprised at the perfect coolness with which the learned body listened to a reproach that was so very distinctly and perseveringly thrown, as it were, into their very teeth.

But a more intimate acquaintance with monikin society satisfied me, that any one might say just what he pleased, so long as he allowed that every one else was an excellent fellow, and he himself the poorest devil going.