DOSS MOI, TANE STIGMEN!
this very day, by my halidam, we shall have it! By the mass he who gainsays it wets not his lips with a cup of hermitage! Nay more, down goes my gauntlet; Captain—there is my hand for you! A fig, I say, for your black rods, your white rods, and your green rods! I would fain flagellate them all with their own proper insignia of office; aye, marry, I say, a plague upon them all, master Heaviside! I am a man somewhat gifted with authority, as you are, Captain, fully aware, being no less than grand Seneschal of yonder ancient castle; and by the mass, indubitably, with due and meet discretion, we shall have viva voce this very day your much to be lauded Anacreontic, and that too without a single repugnant 'perhaps,' against which vague, dubious, and most distrustful adverb, that sage and circumspect Lady Letitia doth so continently and cautiously enter her solemn protest. But my good Sir, time and place—place and time? methinks as I don't toss off drams in a morning, that songs sound sweeter heard in the evening. Oh, ever time and place are to be taken into account, my good Captain, for
DOSS MOI, TANE STIGMEN!
as the venerable Archimedes enforces it—hem; and I shall——But come, Captain, for once I will give a gratuitous prescription—take my nostrum—sing, or hear it sang, Captain Harry Heaviside's new Chronicle, which be sure to wash down with the potation of two honest quarts of old bottled Chateau-Margut, or good Burgundy, for I am not squeamish, which shall answer just quite as well;—swallow the dose, charily, charily, but without shaking the bottle!"
The equestrians soon approached the castle on their return to dinner, and the first bell was now heard pealing over battlement and tower, duly giving warning note; hence from a smart trot they hastened to a brisk gallop.
"Ahem," said Sir Patricius, "see, noble Captain, how strong and lustily the smoke mounts up from the kitchen chimney, bonum signum, bonum signum, by Bacchus and Ceres a most propitious omen! Ahem, spur on, my gallant chevalier!"
The two worthies now reached the lordly castle; and entering the embattled porch, Captain Heaviside observed in a whisper to Sir Patricius: "A d——d bore to be sure it is, all this dressing for dinner, my good Sir Patricius. But no matter, it is some consolation, however, that we shall have an excellent feed; and I am resolved to do it justice, exercise and the mountain air having sharpened a natural good appetite."
"But," rejoined Sir Patricius, "hark, again this accursed bell, how it frights the castle from its propriety.