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Bob, Son of Battle by Alfred Ollivant
page 93 of 317 (29%)
his discretion; and the cynical debater would be lost in the
hot-tongued partisan.

During these encounters the others would, as a rule, maintain a
rigid silence. Only when their champion was being beaten, and it
was time for strength of voice to vanquish strength of argument,
they joined in right lustily and roared the little man down, for all
the world like the gentlemen who rule the Empire at Westminster.

Tammas was an easy subject for M'Adam to draw, but David was
an easier. Insults directed at himself the boy bore with a stolidity
born of long use. But a poisonous dart shot against his friends at
Kenmuir never failed to achieve its object. And the little man
evinced an amazing talent for the concoction of deft lies respecting
James Moore.

"I'm hearin'," said he, one evening, sitting in the kitchen, sucking
his twig; "I'm hearin' James Moore is gaein' to git married agin."

"Yo're hearin' lies--or mair-like tellin' 'em," David answered
shortly. For he treated his father now with contemptuous
indifference.

"Seven months sin' his wife died," the little man continued
meditatively. "Weel, I'm on'y 'stonished he's waited sae lang. Am
buried, anither come on--that's James Moore."

David burst angrily out of the room.

"Gaein' to ask him if it's true?" called his father after him. "Gude
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