I thought that there was only one humorist in England.

Fools!--dolts!--open your cows' eyes; there are two! In Notting Hill--in that unpromising elevation--there has been born an artist! You thought to spoil my joke, and bully me out of it, by becoming more and more modern, more and more practical, more and more bustling and rational.

Oh, what a feast it was to answer you by becoming more and more august, more and more gracious, more and more ancient and mellow! But this lad has seen how to bowl me out.

He has answered me back, vaunt for vaunt, rhetoric for rhetoric.

He has lifted the only shield I cannot break, the shield of an impenetrable pomposity.