Page:Bierce - Collected Works - Volume 07.djvu/19

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been validated.

A

Abasement, n. A decent and customary mental attitude in the presence of wealth or power. Peculiarly appropriate in an employee when addressing an employer.

Abatis, n. Rubbish in front of a fort, to prevent the rubbish outside from molesting the rubbish inside.

Abdication, n. An act whereby a sovereign attests his sense of the high temperature of the throne.

Poor Isabella's dead, whose abdication
Set all tongues wagging in the Spanish nation.
For that performance 'twere unfair to scold her:
She wisely left a throne too hot to hold her.
To History she'll be no royal riddle—
Merely a plain parched pea that jumped the griddle.

G. J.

Abdomen, n. The temple of the god Stomach, in whose worship, with sacrificial rights, all