Since fause Maggie Jurdan
Went and jilted me.”
Leezie only heard one verse, and then began hysterically to cry.
“Look you here, Mac,” broke in Erchie, “could ye no’ mak’ it the sword dance, or the Hoolichan, or something that wadna harrow oor feelin’s this way?”
“Onything that’ll gie us a rest,” said Duffy, soothing his fiancee. “The nicht air’s evidently no’ very guid for the voice.”
“Coals!” cried the policeman, in a very good imitation of Duffy’s business wail; and at that Leezie had to be assisted into the kitchen by the other two women.
Duffy glared at his jealous and defeated rival, thought hard of something withering to hurl at him, and then said “Saps!”
“What iss that you are saying?” asked Macrae. “Saps! Big Saps! That’s jist whit ye are,” said Duffy. “If I wasna engaged I wad gie ye yin in the ear.”
Jinnet’s tea-party broke up as quickly as possible after that. When her guests had gone, and she found herself alone in the kitchen with Erchie and the tea dishes he carried in for her, she fell into a chair and wept.
“I’ll never hae anither tea-pairty, and that’s tellin’ ye,” she exclaimed between her sobs. “Fancy a’ that cairry-on ower a big, fat, cat-witted cratur like thon! Her and her lads!”