“Corry, you ass, whatever put it into your stupid head to make a fool of that kind little woman?”

“Sauer Kraut and Speck Noodle, what did you begin with your abominable Dutch dishes for?”

“I had a perfect right to talk German and of German things with Mrs. Hill.  I did not insult her, like an ungrateful cur, I know.”

“I never insulted her, you blackguard, wouldn’t do such a thing for my life.  I had a perfect right, too, to talk Greek to the old man, and it was you put your ugly foot in it with your diabolical gastronomy.  I wonder you don’t pray the ground to open up and swallow you.”

“I consider, sir, an apology from you to our host and hostess absolutely necessary, and to be made without any delay.”

“I’ll apologize, Wilks, for the deipnosophist part of it, but I’ll be jiggered if I’ll be responsible for your nasty gastronomy.”

“That means that you are going to put all the onus of this hideous and cruel misunderstanding on my shoulders, when I explained your expression in charity to all parties, and to help you out.”

“Help me out, is it?  I think it was helping me into the ditch and yourself, too.”

“Will you or will you not accept the responsibility of this whole unfortunate business?  Here is my ultimatum:  Decline to accept it, and I return to Collingwood this very night.”

“Wilks, my boy, that would never do.  It’s dead tired you’d be, and I’d hear of you laid up with fever and chills from the night air, or perhaps murdered by tramps for the sake of your watch and purse.”

“It matters nothing.  Right must be done. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum. Every law of gratitude for hospitality cries aloud:  ’Make restitution ere the sun goes down.’  I understand, sir, that you refuse.”  So saying, the offended dominie moved rapidly towards the house to resume his knapsack and staff.

“Wilks, if you don’t stop I’ll stone you to death with fossils,” cried the repentant lawyer, throwing a series of trilobites from his tobacco-less pocket at his retreating friend.  The friend stopped and said curtly:  “What is it to be?”

“Wilks, you remind me of an old darkey woman that had a mistress who was troubled with sneezing fits.  The mistress said:  ’Chloe, whenever I sneeze in public, you, as a faithful servant, should take out your handkerchief, and pretend that it was you; you should take it upon yourself, Chloe.’  So, one day in church, the old lady made a big tis-haw, when Chloe jumped up and cried out:  ’I’ll take dat sneeze my ole missus snoze on mysef,’ waving her handkerchief all around.”

“I did not delay my journey to listen to negro stories, Mr. Coristine.”

“It has a moral,” answered the lawyer; “it means that I am going to take all this trouble on myself, and hinder you making a bigger ass of yours.  I’ll apologize to the pair of them for me and you.”

“That being the case, in spite of the objectionable words, ‘bigger ass,’ which you will live to repent, I shall stay.”