Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1874-11-13
DoDGEVIELE WISCONSIN, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 49, 1874
The Danger of Learning How to Pro-
nOunee Don Quixote.

nOunee Don Quixote.
He was up in the finest sanctum ii
America yesterday and he said: "Cal
you tell me the name of that famous
Spanish romance, :Don-Don-how stu
pid know it as well as ] know: you
Don-Don-"
We laid down our graphite in despair
Here he was again. We mused momen
or two before we answered him, callins
up the faces and names of the many
donkeys who had preceded him at differ
ent times There was one t1at-faced fel
| low whose whole intellectual force was
barely able, by the most powerful con
centration, to grapple the intricate liter
airy problem which we knew the gifted
being who had just questioned us wa:
| about to explode. Then there was &
| lawyers clerk who brooded over the
same thing day and night until it had
| become a mania with him, and he would
stop a man in the street to tell him what
the smiling piece of complacency was
going to tell US. There was a young
man who sung tenor in church choir
and had solos at the charity concerts
and felt that he ought to rank in the
literary world along side of Shakespeare
and Byron and Thackeray because, by
giving his whole mind to it, he had be-
come able to do what this genius who
stood smiling at us was just about to
do. We know you have guessed it by
this time, for we know you have met
him. He is ubiquitous. There is one
of him in every town and ward in
the country. He has inflicted his one
accomplishment on you as he has on, us,
oh! how many dreary hundreds of times
So we walked from our sad, sad reverie
and looked up at the smiling ass simper-
ing beside US. We knew just what he
wanted us to say, and we determined to
say it and get through with it, for we
knew. he would hang around for ten
years but what he would compel us to
say it, When these fellows used to
come in on us in this way we use to re-
spond, sadly enough:
"Don Kwixot?'
"How?" the ass would Invariably re-
ply, "Don KwiXot? no, that is not it.
All, yes, ha, ha! l have it now-Donky
hoty, Donky hoty. How was it you pro-
nounced it," And then he would tell
us how it should be pronounced and go
away, one great broad simper of COM
placency. He did not know, nor did the
one who came at us yesterday, in all the
good Lords broad world of fact, and
fancy, and thought, and knowledge, and
boundless ideas and truths, one other
single, solitary thing but this, not one
thing. This ones name was George, and
when he writes it he begins, or did begin,
it with little j, and he told his mother
that Fred. Grant married sister-in-law
of Leroy G. Palmer, nti-Monopoly Con
gresham from this district. But he was
pat on that "Donky hoty," and we knew
it before he opened out on us.
Well, we had never met the one in
Burlington until yesterday, although we
were positive there was one here. And,
as we know by our sad, fearful expert
ence in the past, as soon as a man
learns to say "Donky hoty" he runs
around with his new accomplishment
and bangs it away at every man he
meets But we determined to resist this
one. We steeled our soul to encounter
his attempt to torture us with flood OF
his incomprehensible wisdom and
abounding knowledge with stern and
unrelenting cruelty. So, when he said,
ooh, you know what / mean, Don
Don-oh, dear me, how stupid! Don"
I We asked:
"Who is the author?"
"Why," said, {" Cervantes. What .,
| the name of that book? Don-Don-
why, don't you know?"
| We looked him firmly in the eye anC
said slowly and distinctly, with the ac
cent which we had learned from hun
dreds of his predecessors:
F "Donky hoty."
We would have given worlds to have
it unsaid, but it was too late. The broad
glare of insufferable conceit died out OF
his face, he felt his head in a bewildered
way that touched our heart, and he
groped feebly toward the door. We had
calculated correctly. The man who says
"Donky hoty" never calculates on your
saying anything but Don Kwixot," and
the shock had proved too much for this
poor ass. We waited until his last fal
tering footstep died ON the stairs, and We
leaned out of the window to look at his
pale, horror-stricken face and see him
T gasping for breath. The revulsion had
been too great, and his massive brain
having been checked in the very act OF
diffusing all its immense stores of knowl-
edge, was trembling on the very verge OF
insanity. Some demon must have pos
sessed our heart, for we leaned out of the
window, and with malignant and fendisl
cruelty shouted after him:
"Donky hoty, you walking encyclope
dia; Donky hoty"
That last shot fetched him. He reeled
over into the gutter and died with a hol
| low groan, and as we saw the coroner
come down and roost on him we smiled
wierd, unearthly smile.-Bur16ngton
| HGook-Eye. arr /