2/13 All this means in English, a present; in Mexican Spanish, a civil speech, purporting that the owner is gratified, that it meets the approbation of his visiter. A Frenchman, who heard this grandiloquent reply to his praises of a horse, astonished his friend, by thanking him in terms equally amplified, accepting it, and riding it home. He has used a peculiar style; here again, a stranger would be in error, in supposing the phraseology common to all Americans. It is peculiar only to a certain class of persons in a certain state of life, and in a particular section of the States. Of this class, Mr.Slick is a specimen. |