"Haggis?" said Winthrop.
"Yes. — There was a good fellow of a Scotchman in the stage with me last night — he had the seat just behind me — and he and a brother Scotchman were discoursing valiantly of old world things; warming themselves up with the recollection. — Winthrop, have you got a bit of paper here? — And I heard the word 'haggis' over and over again, —'haggis' and 'parritch.' At last I turned round gravely — 'Pray sir,' said I, 'what is a haggis?' 'Weel, sir,' said he good-humouredly, — 'I don't just know the ingredients — it's made of meal, — and onions, I believe, —and other combustibles!!' — Winthrop, have you got any breakfast in the house?"
"Not much in the combustible line, I am afraid," said
Winthrop, putting up his books and going to the closet.
"Well if you can enact Mother Hubbard and 'give a poor dog a bone,' I shall be thankful, — for anything."
"I am afraid hunger has perverted your memory," said Winthrop.
"How?"
"If the cupboard should play its part now, the dog would go without any."
"O you'll do better for me than that, I hope," said Rufus; "for I couldn't go on enacting the dog's part long; he took to laughing, if I remember, and I should be beyond that directly."
"Does that ever happen?" said Winthrop, as he brought out of the cupboard his bits of stores; a plate with the end of a loaf of bread, a little pitcher of milk, and another plate with some remains of cold beefsteak. For all reply, Rufus seized upon a piece of bread, to begin with, and thrusting a fork into the beefsteak, he held it in front of the just- burning firebrands. Winthrop stood looking on, while Rufus, the beefsteak, and the smoke, seemed mutually intent upon each other. It was a question of time, and patience; not to speak of fortitude.
"Winthrop," said Rufus changing hands with his fork, — "have you any coffee?"