"
"You are learned, Master Linklater," replied the English publican,
compelling, as it were with difficulty, his mouth to utter three or
four words consecutively.
"A poor smatterer," said Mr. Linklater; "but it would be a shame to
us, who are his most excellent Majesty's countrymen, not in some sort
to have cherished those arts wherewith he is so deeply embued--_Regis
ad exemplar_, Master Kilderkin, _totus componitur orbis_--which is as
much as to say, as the king quotes the cook learns. In brief, Master
Kilderkin, having had the luck to be bred where humanities may be had
at the matter of an English five groats by the quarter, I, like
others, have acquired--ahem-hem!--" Here, the speaker's eye having
fallen upon Lord Glenvarloch, he suddenly stopped in his learned
harangue, with such symptoms of embarrassment as induced Ned Kilderkin
to stretch his taciturnity so far as not only to ask him what he
ailed, but whether he would take any thing.
"Ail nothing," replied the learned rival of the philosophical Syrus;
"Nothing--and yet I do feel a little giddy. I could taste a glass of
your dame's _aqua mirabilis_."
"I will fetch it," said Ned, giving a nod; and his back was no sooner
turned, than the cook walked near the table where Lord Glenvarloch was
seated, and regarding him with a look of significance, where more was
meant than met the ear, said,--"You are a stranger in Greenwich, sir.
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