The reply to this sneer at Skimclean's legal acquirements was of as summary and expressive a nature as can well be imagined. It was the contents of a jug--said contents being somewhere about a quart of boiling hot water--discharged with great force and dexterity full in the face of the "soothless insulter," accompanied by the appropriate injunction--"Tak that, ye auld guse; an' if that's no law, it's justice." "Revise _that_ condescendence," replied the laird, making a tremendous effort to seize his antagonist across the table, in which effort the said table instantly went over with a tremendous crash, sending every individual article that it had supported into a thousand pieces. In the midst of the wreck and ruin thus occasioned lay the prostrate person of the laird, who had naturally gone down with the table, and who now, as we have said, lay floundering amongst the debris, composed of broken bottles, jugs, and glasses, with which the floor was covered. "A clear case o' damages," shouted Skimclean. "Revise the condescendence in that partikler," said the laird, rising to his feet, and exhibiting sundry bleeding scars on his lugubrious countenance. "That cock 'll no fecht, Drumwhussle. The case is no guid in law. It wadna stan a hoast in the Court o' Session." "Wull _that_ stan, then?" exclaimed Skimclean, making a lounge at the laird's face with his closed fist, which took full effect upon the enemy's left eye. "I maun mak a rejoinder to _that_," said the laird, now attacking his host in turn, and with such effect, as finally to floor him, being, although the older, by much the stronger man--"I maun mak a rejoinder to _that_," he said, first striking at, and then grappling, his antagonist, when a deadly struggle ensued, which ended in both coming to the floor with an appalling thud. The laird, although taken from his feet, still maintained his physical superiority by keeping the foe under him. He was uppermost, and uppermost he determined to remain; and this triumphant position he further secured himself in by seizing Skimclean by the neckcloth, and, by the vigour of his hold, subjecting him to a fac-simile of the process of strangulation. "What think ye o' my law, noo, ye puir empty pretender?" said the laird, as he gave the other twist to Drumwhussle's neckcloth--"you and yer trash o' Latin, that ye ken nae mair aboot, I believe, than a cow kens about a steam-engine." "That's aboot yer ain knowledge o' law, I'm thinkin," replied Skimclean, chokingly, but boldly; and in gallant defiance of his present adverse circumstances. "I wad match ony coo I hae in my byre against ye at a defeeckwalt point o' law." "Do ye fin' _that_?" said the laird, twisting Drumwhussle's neckcloth with increasing ferocity. "There's law for ye. There's the strong arm o' the law for ye. Doin summary justice on an ignorant, pretendin idowit."