wholly discount how impressed Walton himself is by his friend's intervention on his
behalf. Yet at the same time the ambivalence in diction that has surrounded the functioning
of eloquence since Walton resumed the narration (III:Walton:1, III:Walton:6 and note,
III:Walton:12 and note) calls attention to this further instance of the double-entendre.
"Design" may be a synonym for "purpose," the word Walton stresses just below, at the
end of this day's entry; but it may also bear a sense of calculated histronics. The
linguistic ambivalence allows Walton and his readers, should they wish, to derive
opposite conclusions from the same evidence.