“I dinna ken, and I dinna care. It's mair needfu' that one kens hoo to mak' it than to speer wha gave it the name of cockie-leekie.”
“More properly pronounced, coq à lécher,” said the inexorable Dean. “The dish is a French one.”
“Did ever any one hear the like?” exclaimed Sir Andrew, utterly confounded by the assertion.
“I confess, Sir Andrew,” said Linton, “it's rather hard on Scotland. They say you stole all your ballad-music from Italy, and now they claim your cookery for France!”
“The record,” said the Attorney-General, across the table, “was tried at Trim. Your Lordships sat with the Chief Baron.”
“I remember perfectly; we agreed that the King's Bench ruled right, and that the minor's claim was substantiated.” Then turning to Mrs. Kennyfeck, who out of politeness had affected to take interest in what she could not even understand a syllable of, he entered into a very learned dissertation on “heritable property,” and the great difficulties that lay in the way of defining its limits.
Meanwhile “pipeclay,” as is not unsuitably styled mess-table talk, passed among the military, with the usual quizzing about regimental oddities. Brownrigg's cob, Hanshaw's whiskers, Talbot's buggy, and Carey's inimitable recipe for punch, the Dean throwing in his negatives here and there, to show that nothing was “too hot or too heavy” for his intellectual fingers.
“Bad law! Mr. Chief Justice,” said he, in an authoritative tone. “Doves in a cot, and coneys in a warren, go to the heir. With respect to deer—”
“Oh dear, how tiresome!” whispered Mrs. White to Cashel, who most heartily assented to the exclamation.
“What's the name o' that beastie, young gentleman?” said Sir Andrew, who overheard Cashel recounting some circumstances of Mexican life.