For a minute or so we plodded across the sand in silence. Joe
Roscorla was Uncle Loveday's "man," a word in our parts connoting
ability to look after a horse, a garden, a pig or two, or, indeed,
anything that came in the way of being looked after. At the present
moment I came in that way; consequently, after some time spent in
reflective silence, Joe began to speak.

"You'm looking wisht."

"Am I, Joe?"

"Mortal."

There was a pause: then Joe continued--

"I don't hold by furriners: let alone they be so hard to get
along with in the way of convarsing, they be but a heathen lot.
But, Jasper, warn't it beautiful?"

"What, Joe?"

"Why, to see the doctor tackle the lingo. Beautiful, I culls it; but
there, he's a scholard, and no mistake, and 'tain't no good for to
say he ain't. Not as ever I've heerd it said."

"But, Joe, the man didn't seem to understand him."

"Durn all furriners, say I; they be so cursed pigheaded. Understand?
I'll go bail he understood fast enough."