Thus speaking, he bowed to Captain MacTurk and the Rev. Mr. Simon Chatterly, and reclined on his chair, sipping his negus with the self-satisfied smile of one, who, by a pretty speech, has rid himself of a troublesome commission. At the same time, by an act probably of mental absence, he put in his pocket the drawing, which, after circulating around the table, had returned back to the chair of the president, being the point from which it had set out. "By Cot, madam," said Captain MacTurk, "I should be proud to obey your leddyship's commands--but, by Cot, I never call first on any man that never called upon me at all, unless it were to carry him a friend's message, or such like." "Twig the old connoisseur," said the Squire to the Knight.--"He is condiddling the drawing." "Go it, Johnnie Mowbray--pour it into him," whispered Sir Bingo. "Thank ye for nothing, Sir Bingo," said the Squire, in the same tone. "Winterblossom is one of us--_was_ one of us at least--and won't stand the ironing. He has his Wogdens still, that were right things in his day, and can hit the hay-stack with the best of us--but stay, they are hallooing on the parson." They were indeed busied on all hands, to obtain Mr. Chatterly's consent to wait on the Genius unknown; but though he smiled and simpered, and was absolutely incapable of saying No, he begged leave, in all humility, to decline that commission. "The truth was," he pleaded in his excuse, "that having one day walked to visit the old Castle of St. Ronan's, and returning through the Auld Town, as it was popularly called, he had stopped at the door of the _Cleikum_," (pronounced _Anglice_, with the open diphthong,) "in hopes to get a glass of syrup of capillaire, or a draught of something cooling; and had in fact expressed his wishes, and was knocking pretty loudly, when a sash-window was thrown suddenly up, and ere he was aware what was about to happen, he was soused with a deluge of water," (as he said,) "while the voice of an old hag from within assured him, that if that did not cool him there was another biding him,--an intimation which induced him to retreat in all haste from the repetition of the shower-bath." All laughed at the account of the chaplain's misfortune, the history of which seemed to be wrung from him reluctantly, by the necessity of assigning some weighty cause for declining to execute the ladies' commands. But the Squire and Baronet continued their mirth far longer than decorum allowed, flinging themselves back in their chairs, with their hands thrust into their side-pockets, and their mouths expanded with unrestrained enjoyment, until the sufferer, angry, disconcerted, and endeavouring to look scornful, incurred another general burst of laughter on all hands.