"Blennerhassett."
"It's a prodigious long name, ain't it? Too long, in my opinion. You can have it shortened by law. I'm told you're from Ireland. You don't look much Irish, nor you haven't a bad brogue. I s'pose you've got your naturalization papers all right. This administration is rather easy on foreigners, especially French, for Jefferson has Frenchy notions. President Adams was rough on emigrants—maybe too rough; he wanted to sock it to them hard by acts of Congress. What is your opinion of the Alien and Sedition laws? I favor them; I'm a Federalist to the marrow-bones. I don't reckon you're a United Irishman, Mr. Blanner—"
"Blenner, if you please—Blennerhassett. I belong to the order of United Irishmen, but I presume your errand here is not to discuss politics. Your looks denote that you affiliate with—shall I say, the common people, the humbler class? What is your business here, my good man?"
"Rattlesnakes and brimstone! Me your good man! Me of the humbler class! Why, Squire B., we have no humbler class on our side of the Ohio. But you needn't apologize; I'm not huffy. You're new to the country and your blunders are excusable. I happened along this way—"
"My time is valuable, I must ask you to be brief. What do you want?"
"You're a bigger man than I calculated to see; you're a large-sized citizen, full six foot, I should guess, and you stoop consider'bl in the shoulders, like myself. The Byles are all built that way. But your feet are smaller than mine, and I should think you'd feel awk'ard in such toggery as them red breeches and shoe buckles."
"You are impertinent," snapped Blennerhassett, turning from his rude critic. "If you have nothing to tell or to ask that is of any importance, make off, for I can be detained no longer."
"Hold on, neighbor; I've heaps yet to tell, and lots more to ask. The first thing I noticed particularly when I landed was that puddle up there, with the hunk of raw meat soaking, and I would like dangnation well to know why you put that meat in that puddle?"
Annoyed beyond endurance, the lord of the island would have hurried away, but he was diverted from his intention by the unexpected conduct of his guest, who, suddenly dropping on all fours, fell to examining with the liveliest interest a wild plant which had forced its stem up through the sod.
"Do you know what that is?" asked Plutarch of the two boys who stood near their father, perplexed by the dialogue to which they had listened. They shook their heads, when, glancing up at Scipio, the questioner repeated, "Do you know?" and not waiting for a reply, "That's snakeroot; smell it!" He plucked a portion of the herb, rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger and thrust the bruised substance first under his own nose and then beneath the reluctant nostrils of the disdainful Master Dominick.