"By smoke!"

Levin went on putting the bridles and breeching on the horses, when the man said again, with an insinuating grin:

"By smoke!"

"Heigh?" exclaimed Levin.

"By smoke!" the man remarked again, with a very ardent emphasis.

"You must have been in Prencess Anne," Levin said, "to swar 'by smoke.'"

The ill-raised man, with such an inferior head and cranish neck, now slipped around to the front of Levin and looked down on him, and whispered:

"Hokey-pokey!"

The idea crossed Levin's mind that the scullion of Patty Cannon must have gone crazy.

"Whair did you pick up them words, Cy?" Levin asked.