"An' wha' fir no?" demanded Tam sternly. "Haud tae ye 'se hae ony siccan a historic name in yir ain domd kintra. D'ye ken wha, firbye mysen, was boarn in Ecchelfechan syne? Vinna fash yirsel' aboot"—
"I say, Scotty," interposed Toby; "Egglefeggan 's the place where they eat brose—ain't it?"
"A'll haud nae deeskission wi' the produc' o' hauf-a-dizzen generations o' slavery," replied Tam haughtily. "A dinna attreebute ony blame tae yir ain sel', laddie; bit ye canna owrecam the kirse o' Canaan."
"Cripes! do you take me for a (adj.) mulatter?" growled the descendant of a thousand kings. "Why, properly speaking, I own this here (adj.) country, as fur as the eye can reach."
"Od, ye puir, glaikit, misleart remlet o' a perishin' race," retorted Tam— "air ye no the mair unsicker? Air ye no feart ye'se aiblins see yon day gin ye 'se thole waur fare nir a wamefu' o' gude brose? Heh!"
"Oh, speak English, you (adj.) bawbee-hunter!" muttered H.R.H. "Why, they 're a cut above brose in China—ain't they, Sling?"
"Eatee lice in China," replied the gardener, with national pride.
"Plenty lice—good cookee—welly ni'."
"By gummies! Hi seed the time Hi'd 'a' stopped yer jorrin', Dave!" said a quavering voice, dominating some argument at the other end of the table. "Hi seed me fightin' in a sawr-pit f'r tew hewrs an' sebmteen minits, by the watch; an' fetched 'ome in a barrer. Now wot's the hupshot? Did 'n' Hi say, 'Look hout! we'll git hit to rights'?"
"But you (adv.) well thought we'd get rain," persisted the old man's antagonist—an open-mouthed, fresh-faced rouseabout, who was just undergoing that colonising process so much dreaded by mothers and deplored by the clergy.
"'Ow the (fourfold expletive) do you hundertake to know wot Hi thort?
But wot war the hupshot? 'Look hout!' ses Hi; 'we'll git hit to rights!'
An' did we, hor did we not? Straight, now, Dave?"