Page:Guy Mannering Vol 3.djvu/258

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248
GUY MANNERING.

The Colonel's equanimity was rather shaken by this last blunder. "Upon my word, my good friend, Mr. Sampson, you forget the difference between Plato and Zenocrates."

"The former was chief of the academics, the latter of the stoics," said the Dominie, with some scorn of the supposition.

"Yes, my dear sir, but it was Zenocrates, not Plato, who denied that pain was an evil."

"I should have thought," said Pleydell, "that very respectable quadruped, who is just now limping out of the room upon three of his four legs, was rather of the Cynic school."

"Very well hit off—But here comes an answer from Mac-Morlan."

It was unfavourable. Mrs. Mac-Morlan sent her respectful compliments, and her husband had been, and was, detained, by some alarming disturbances which had taken place the preceding night at Portan-