“Weel,” said he, “I’ll tell—but where was I at?”
“Ou, at the observe of Lovetenant Todrick, or what they caa’d him, about the tripe; and the answer of Duncan MacAlpine on that head, ‘That ilka man has his ain taste.’”
“‘Vera true,’ said Lovetenant Todrick, ‘but lift it out a’thegither on that dish, till I get my specs on; for never since I was born, did I ever see before boiled tripe with buttons and button-holes intill’t.’”
At this I set up a loud laughing, which I could not help, though it was like to split my sides; but Thomas Burlings bade me whisht till I heard him out.
“‘Buttons and button-holes!’ quo’ Duncan MacAlpine. ‘Look again, wi’ yer specs; for ye’re surely wrang, Lovetenant Todrick.’
“‘Buttons and button-holes! and ’deed I am surely right, Duncan,’ answered the Lovetenant Todrick, taking his specs deliberately off the brig o’ his nose, and faulding them thegither, as he put them first into his shagreen case, and syne into his pocket—‘Howsomever, Duncan MacAlpine, I’ll pass ye ower for this time, gif ye take my warning, and for the future ware your pay-money on wholesome butcher’s meat, like a Christian, and no be trying to delude your ain stamick, and your offisher’s een, by holding up, on a fork, such a heathenish mak-up for a dish, as the leg of a pair o’ buckskin breeches!’”
“Buckskin breeches!” said I, “and did he really and actually boil siccan trash to his dinner?”
“Nae sae far south as that yet, friend,” answered Thomas. “Duncan was not so bowed in the intellect as ye imagine, and had some spice of cleverality about his queer manœuvres.—Eat siccan trash to his dinner! Nae mair, Mansie, than ye intend to eat that iron guse ye’re rinning along that piece claith; but he wanted to make his offishers believe that his pay gaed the right way: like the Pharisees of old that keepit praying, in ell-lang faces, about the corners of the streets, and gaed hame wi’ hearts full of wickedness and a’ manner of cheatrie.”
“And what way did his pay gang, then?” asked I; “and how did he live?”
“I telled ye before, frien,” answered Thomas, “that he was a deboshed creature; and, like ower mony in the world, likit weel what didna do him ony good. It’s a wearyfu’ thing that whisky. I wish it could be banished to Botany Bay.