stranger already on the most friendly, to all appearance, indeed,
confidential terms with the landlord.

"Hale, did you say?" he heard Grinsell ask. "Ay, hale as you an' me, an'
like to last another twenty year, rot him."

"But the gout takes him, you said--nodosa podagra, as my friend Ovid
would say?"

"Ay, but I've knowed a man live forty year win the gout. And he dunna
believe in doctor's dosin'; he goes to Buxton to drink the weeters when
he bin madded wi' the pain, an' comes back sound fur six month."

"Restored to his dear neighbors and friends--caris propinquis--"

"Hang me, but I wish you'd speak plain English an' not pepper your talk
win outlandish jabber."

"Patience, Job; why, man, you belie your name. Come, you must humor an
old friend; that's what comes of education, you see; my head is stuffed
with odds and ends that annoy my friends, while you can't read, nor
write, nor cipher beyond keeping your score. Lucky Job!"

Desmond turned away. The two men's conversation was none of his business;
and he suspected from the stranger's manner that he had been drinking
freely. He had stepped barely a dozen paces when he heard the voice again
break into song. He halted and wheeled about; the tune was catching, and
now he distinguished some of the words--

Says Billy Norris, Masulipatam,