"I'll hear no more on't," said the personage who first appeared on the
scene.--"Sir, I will hear no more on it. Besides being a most false
and impudent figment, as I can testify--it is _Scandaalum Magnaatum_,
sir--_Scandaalum Magnaatum_" he reiterated with a broad accentuation
of the first vowel, well known in the colleges of Edinburgh and
Glasgow, which we can only express in print by doubling the said first
of letters and of vowels, and which would have cheered the cockles of
the reigning monarch had he been within hearing,--as he was a severer
stickler for what he deemed the genuine pronunciation of the Roman
tongue, than for any of the royal prerogatives, for which he was at
times disposed to insist so strenuously in his speeches to Parliament.
"I care not an ounce of rotten cheese," said John Christie in reply,
"what you call it--but it is TRUE; and I am a free Englishman, and
have right to speak the truth in my own concerns; and your master is
little better than a villain, and you no more than a swaggering
coxcomb, whose head I will presently break, as I have known it well
broken before on lighter occasion."
And, so saying, he flourished the paring-shovel which usually made
clean the steps of his little shop, and which he had caught up as the
readiest weapon of working his foeman damage, and advanced therewith
upon him. The cautious Scot (for such our readers must have already
pronounced him, from his language and pedantry) drew back as the
enraged ship-chandler approached, but in a surly manner, and bearing
his hand on his sword-hilt rather in the act of one who was losing
habitual forbearance and caution of deportment, than as alarmed by the
attack of an antagonist inferior to himself in youth, strength, and
weapons.
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