Clifford (yawning).--Now, Mr. Macpherson, your story comes next,
and if it is but of brevity as reasonable as that which we have now
heard,--aw!--aw--I think,--aw-ah-ah-aw!--that in justice to you,
we are bound to hear it ere we go to bed--a--aw-aw.
Dominie.--I cannot positively say what my story might measure out to
in the hands of ane able story-teller. Some clever chield like Homer,
or Virgil, or Sir Walter Scott, for example, any one of whom could
spin you a thread as if they were working it off by the hundred ells,
with that machine once vurra much used by the Highland wives, called
the muckle wheel. But, plain man as I am, you can never expeck me to
tell anything but the bare facks. Yet I must not let you yemagine,
gentlemen, that there is any fack at all in the foolish fairy story
I am now going to tell you.
Clifford.--Why, Mr. Macpherson,--aw--aw--ha! if I have any of my
logic left in me at all, I think I can prove that de facto you have
no story to tell. As thus:--
You tell nothing but facks.
In your story there is no fack.
Therefore you have nothing to tell.
Quod erat demonstrandum. Ergo, as a corollary, I think we had
better--aw--aw--a--go to bed.
Grant.--Very ingeniously made out, Clifford. But we know from
experience, that logic and common sense are not always equal to the
same thing, and therefore they are not always equal to one another. So,
to cut the argument short, I now move that Mr. Macpherson do forthwith
begin his story.
Author.--I second the motion.
Clifford.--Well, I shall--aw, aw--light another cigar, and if he does
not finish in the smoking of it, I for one shall bowl off to bed.
Grant.--Come then, Mr. Macpherson, pray take the start of him.