"Try some of this 'ere fowl, Mrs Brown, it's remarkably tender, it is; just suited to the tender lips of--dear me, Mrs Brown, how improvin' the mountain hair is to your complexion, if I may wenture to speak of improvin' that w'ich is perfect already." "Get along, Hobbs!" said Mrs Brown, affecting to be displeased. "My dear, I'm gettin' along like a game chicken, perhaps I might say like Dan, who's got the most uncommon happetite as I ever did see. He's a fine fellow, Dan is, ain't he, Mrs Brown?" "Brute," said Mrs Brown; "they're all brutes." "Ah!" said Hobbs, shaking his head, "strong language, Mrs Brown. But, admitting that, (merely for the sake of argument, of course), you cannot deny that they are raither clever brutes." "I do deny it," retorted Mrs Brown, taking a savage bite out of the leg of a chicken, as if it represented the whole Celtic race. "Don't they talk the most arrant stuff?--specially that McAllister, who is forever speakin' about things that he don't understand, and that nobody else does!" "Speak for yourself; ma'am," said Hobbs, drawing himself up with as much dignity as was compatible with a sitting posture. "I _do_ speak for myself. Moreover, I speak for _some_ whom I might name, and who ain't _verra_ far away." "If, ma'am, you mean that insinivation to apply--" "I make no insinivations. Hand me that pot of jam--no, the unopened one." Hobbs did as he was required with excruciating politeness, and thereafter took refuge in dignified silence; suffering, however, an expression of lofty scorn to rest on his countenance. Mrs Brown observed this, and her irate spirit was still further chafed by it. She meditated giving utterance to some withering remarks, while, with agitated fingers, she untied the string of the little pot of cranberry-jam. Worthy Mrs Brown was particularly fond of cranberry-jam. She had put up this pot in her own basket expressly for her own private use. She now opened it with the determination to enjoy it to the full, to smack her lips very much and frequently, and offer none of it to Hobbs. When the cover was removed she gazed into the pot with a look of intense horror, uttered a piercing shriek, and fell back in a dead faint.