Cribb _still_ went cuttin' pounds and pounds of
meat off the lodgers' jints, emptying their tea-caddies, actually
reading their letters. Sally had been told so by Polly, the Cribb's
maid, who was kep', how that poor child was kep,' hearing language
perfectly hawful!'"
Thus in all Thackeray's descriptions there is more or less satire. He
was always making pincushions, into which he was plunging his little
points of sarcasm, and owing to his confining himself to this kind of
humour he avoids the common danger of missing his mark. He is
occasionally liberal of oaths and imprecations, and when any one of his
characters is offended, he generally relieves his feelings by uttering
"horrid curses." Barnes Newcome sends up "a perfect _feu d'artifice_ of
oaths." But he is entirely free from indelicacy, and merely elegantly
shadows forth the Eton form of punishment, as that "which none but a
cherub can escape." In this respect he seems to have set before him the
example of Mr. Honeyman, of whom he says he had "a thousand anecdotes,
laughable riddles and droll stories (of the utmost correctness, you
understand.)"
Perhaps one of his least successful attempts at humour is a collection
of fables at the commencement of the Newcomes in which we have
conversations between a fox, an owl, a wolf in sheep's clothing, and a
donkey in a lion's skin, and such incongruities as would have shocked
Aristophanes.
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