XXIV
Mr Jabberjee relates his experiences upon the Moors.
I am now an acclimatised denizen of Caledonia stern and wild; which, however, turns out to be milder and tamer than depicted by the jaundiced hand of national jealousy.
For, since my arrival at this hamlet of Kilpaitrick, N.B., I have not once beheld any species of savage hill-man; moreover, the adult inhabitants are clothed with irreproachable decency, and, if the juveniles run about with denuded feet and heads, where is the shocking scandal?
Mr Allbutt-Innett, sen., did me the honour to appear in person upon the Kilpaitrick platform, and welcome me with outspread arms to his temporary hearth and home, but I shall have the candour of confessing my disappointment with the size and appearance of the same. It appears that a "Manse" is not at all a palatial edifice, furnished with a plethora of marble halls and vassals and serfs, &c., but simply the very so-so and two-storied abode of some local priest!
My gracious hostess was to tender profuse apologies for its homeliness, on the plea that it is refreshing at times to lay aside ceremonial magnificence and unbend in rural simplicity, though it is not humanly possible to unbend oneself upon the thorny bosoms of chairs and couches severely upholstered with the prickling hairs of an extinct horse.
Still, as I assured Miss Wee-Wee, she is the happy owner of a magical knack to transform, by her sheer apparition, the humblest hovel into the first-class family residence with every modern improvement.
With the said Miss I continue on terms of hand and gloveship, with mutual harmless jokes, which would perhaps be as caviare on toast to a general, though I shall venture to recount some examples.