"Then what for did she not tell Chatterton she was going to marry you?"
"What right had he to know, sir?"
"A vera good right, I think; or if he hadna, I wad like to know wha had?"
"There, sir, we differ in opinion. Will you deliver your message, name your place and hour, and I shall meet you. I shall easily get a friend in this town, though I thought it better at one time to apply to a civilian; but I fear," he added, with a smile, "my friend Mr Clam will scarcely do."
"I really dinna ken—I positively don't know, as a body may say, how to proceed in this matter. In the first place, if your wife is over fond of Chatterton."
"My wife, sir?"
"'Deed ay—placens uxor, as a body may say—I say if your wife continues to like Chatterton, you had better send a message to him, and not he to you."
"So I would, if she gave me occasion, Major M'Toddy; but if your friend boasts of any thing of that kind, his conduct is still more infamous and intolerable than I thought it."
"But your ainsel'—your own self told me so this minute."
"You mistake, sir. I say that Marion Hope, my wife's sister, is still foolish enough to like him."