"Oh, come off your perch! you blamed old rooster! Where's your bottle?"
"What iss this?" said Mackenzie, much affronted. "You will be calling me names?"
As he rose in his indignation a bottle fell from his pocket. Kalman made a dash toward it, but Mackenzie was too quick for him. With a savage curse he snatched up the bottle, and at the same time made a fierce but unsuccessful lunge at the boy.
"You little deevil!" he said fiercely, "I will be knocking your head off!"
Kalman jibed at him. "You are a nice sort of fellow to be on a job. What will your boss say?"
Mackenzie's face changed instantly.
"The boss?" he said, glancing in the direction of the house. "The boss? What iss the harm of a drop when you are not well?"
"You not well!" exclaimed Kalman scornfully.
Mackenzie shook his head sadly, sinking back upon the grass. "It iss many years now since I have suffered with an indisposeetion of the bowels. It iss a coalic, I am thinking, and it iss hard on me. But, Callum, man, it will soon be denner time. Just put your horses in and I will be following you."
But Kalman knew better than that.