he boasted to visitors, as he often did, of his partner’s learning, there was a quality of pride that was profoundly touching and paternal: it was as if Bascom had been his son and as if he wanted at every opportunity to display his talents to the world. And this, in fact, was exactly what he did want to do. Much to Bascom’s annoyance, Brill was constantly speaking of his erudition to strangers who had come into the office for the first time, and constantly urging him to perform for them, to “say some of them big words, Reverend.” And even when the old man answered him, as he frequently did, in terms of scorn, anger, and contempt, Brill was completely satisfied if Uncle Bascom would only use a few of the “big words” in doing it. Thus, one day, when one of his boyhood friends, a New Hampshire man whom he had not seen in thirty-five years, had come in to renew their acquaintance Brill, in describing the accomplishments of his partner, said with an air of solemn affirmation: “Why, hell yes, Jim! It’d take a college perfesser to know what the Reverend is talkin’about half the time! No ordinary son of a bitch is able to understand him! So help me God, it’s true!” he swore solemnly, as Jim looked incredulous. “The Reverend knows words the average man ain’t never heard. He knows words that ain’t even in the dictionary. Yes, sir!—an’uses’em, too—all the time!” he concluded triumphantly.
“Why, my dear sir!” Bascom answered in a tone of exacerbated contempt, “What on earth are you talking about? Such a man as you describe would be a monstrosity, a heinous perversion of natural law! A man so wise that no one could understand him:—so literate that he could not communicate with his fellow-creatures:—so erudite that he led the inarticulate and incoherent life of a beast or a savage!”—here Uncle Bascom squinted his eyes tightly shut, and laughed sneeringly down his nose: “Phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh! phuh!—Why, you con-sum-mate fool!” he sneered, “I have long known that your ignorance was bottomless—but I had never hoped to see it equalled—Nay, surpassed!” he howled, “by your asininity.”
“There you are!” said Brill exultantly to his visitor, “What did I tell you? There’s one of them words, Jim:’asserninity,’why, damn it, the Reverend’s the only one who knows what that word means—you won’t even find it in the dictionary!”
“Not find it in the dictionary!” Bascom yelled. “Almighty God, come down and give this ass a tongue as Thou didst once before in Balaam’s time!”
