"Am I, Joe?"
"Mortal."
There was a pause: then Joe continued—
"I don't hold by furriners: let alone they be so hard to get along with in the way of convarsing, they be but a heathen lot. But, Jasper, warn't it beautiful?"
"What, Joe?"
"Why, to see the doctor tackle the lingo. Beautiful, I culls it; but there, he's a scholard, and no mistake, and 'tain't no good for to say he ain't. Not as ever I've heerd it said."
"But, Joe, the man didn't seem to understand him."
"Durn all furriners, say I; they be so cursed pigheaded. Understand? I'll go bail he understood fast enough."
Joe's opinions coincided so fatally with my certainty that I held my tongue. "A dweller in—what did he call the spot, Jasper?"
"Mesopotamia."