The little man stood smirking and sucking his eternal twig, entirely
unmoved by the other's heat.

"Ye're right, Mr. Hombut, as ye aye are. But my argiment is this:
that I get at his soul best through his icetle carcase."

The honest parson brought down his stick with an angry thud.

"M'Adam, you're a brute--a brute!" he shouted. At which outburst
the little man was seized with a spasm of silent merriment,

"A fond dad first, a brute afterward, aiblins--he! he! Ah, Mr.
Hornbut! ye 'ford me vast diversion, ye do indeed, 'my loved, my
honored, much-respected friend."

"If you paid as much heed to your boy's welfare as you do to the
bad poetry of that profligate ploughman--"

An angry gleam shot into the other's eyes. "D'ye ken what
blasphemy is, Mr. Horn-but?" he asked, shouldering a pace
forward.

For the first time in the dispute the parson thought he was about to
score a point, and was calm accordingly.

"I should do; I fancy I've a specimen of the breed before me now.
And d'you know what impertinence is?"

"I should do; I fancy I've--I awd say it's what gentlemen aften are