[pg 96] I paid him as good or better on the return; whereupon he stepped a little back and took off his hat to me decorously.
"Enough plows I think," says he. "I will be the offended shentleman, for who effer heard of such suffeeciency as tell a shentlemans that is the king's officer he cannae speak Cot's English? We have swords at our hurdies, and here is the King's Park at hand. Will ye walk first, or let me show ye the way?"
I returned his bow, told him to go first, and followed him. As he went I heard him grumble to himself about Cot's English and the King's coat , so that I might have supposed him to be seriously offended. But his manner at the beginning of our interview was there to belie him. It was manifest he had come prepared to fasten a quarrel on me, right or wrong; manifest
