I expressed my regrets, therefore, as succinctly as possible, encouraging him with the hope of seeing a new covering of down before long, but delicately abstaining from any allusion to the cauda, whose loss I knew was irretrievable.

To my great surprise, however, the judge answered cheerfully; discarding, for the moment, every appearance of self-abasement and mortification.
"How is this ?" I cried; "you are not then miserable ?" "Very far from it, Sir John--I never was in better spirits, or had better prospects, in my life." I remembered the extraordinary manner in which the brigadier had saved Noah's head, and was fully resolved not to be astonished at any manifestation of monikin ingenuity.

Still I could not forbear demanding an explanation.
"Why, it may seem odd to you, Sir John, to find a politician, who is apparently in the depths of despair, really on the eve of a glorious preferment.

Such, however, is in fact my case.

In Leaplow, humility is everything.