‘Boots!’ quo’ she; (with amazement)
‘Aye, boots!’ quo’ he.
“‘Ye auld blind dotard carle,
And blinder mat ye be! (indignantly)
It’s but a pair o’ water-stoups,
My minnie sent to me.’
‘Water-stoups?’ quo’ he,
‘Aye, water-stoups;’ quo’ she.” (with impudent determination).
And so in like manner she unblushingly persists, in order to preserve her guest’s life, that a saddle-horse is a milking cow, and a man’s coat a pair of blankets. Now we are sure this dear woman had a Celestial Nose; nothing else would have had the ready wit and impudent assurance to attempt so to befool her gudeman, and to persist, with the addition of no slight abuse of his dotard blindness, in her palpable falsehoods; yet we defy any one not to love the good woman, and excuse her breaches of morality for the sake of her hospitable benevolence.
Whenever two persons, the one having a large Nose and the other a small one, come into collision, the latter must inevitably yield, unless it is feminine, and takes a Celestial turn. It may then conquer, not by its wisdom or the force of argument, but by its persevering impudence, and harassing petty skirmishing. A wise man may, for the sake of peace and quiet, ostensibly yield to a noisy woman; though there is no real conquest, for he remains unconvinced.