And English right;"

and so on in drunken ribaldry.

"All very well for you who are a Shamite, Shmite, Shmith, Smith," said
W----pe. "We happen to be Japhetites. Then what say you to Rob Roy?"

"That, in the first place," replied S----th, "he was a Shemite; for
Gathelus, the first Scottish monarch, was a grandson of Nimrod, and,
what is worse, he married Scota, the daughter of an Egyptian queen, so
there was a spice of Ham in Rob; and as all the Hamites were robbers,
Rob was a robber too;--as to whose cowardice there is no doubt whatever;
for a man who steals another man's cattle in the dark must be a coward.
Did you ever hear one single example of Rob attacking when in good
daylight, and fighting for them in the sun?"

"Ingenious, S----th, at any rate," roared S----k; "but I don't agree
with you. A robber on the highway, must, in the general case, have
courage. He braves public opinion, he laughs at the gallows, and he
throws himself right against a man in bold competition, without knowing
often whether he is a giant or a dwarf."

"All the elements of a batter pudding," cried S----th, "without the
battering principle. Ay, you forget the head-battering bludgeon, the
instantaneous pistol, or the cunning knife; none of all which would a
man with a spark of courage in him use against an unarmed, defenceless
traveller. Another thing you forget, the robber acts upon surprises. He
produces confusion by his very presentation, fear by his demand of life
or money; and when the poor devil's head is running round, he runs away
with his watch or his purse, perhaps both. 'Tis all selfishness, pure
unadulterated selfishness; and will you tell me that a man without a
particle of honesty or generosity can have courage?"

"Not moral courage, perhaps; but he may have physical."

"All the same, no difference," continued the doughty S----th. "Who ever
heard of a bodily feeling except as something coming through the body?
There are only two physical feelings: pain in being wounded or starved,
and pleasure in being relieved from pain, or fed when hungry or thirsty.
I know none other; all the others are moral feelings."

"You may be bold through drink acting on the stomach and head."

"Ay, but the boldness, though the effect of a physical cause, is itself
a moral entity."

"Whoever thought that S----th was such a metaphysician!" said W----pe, a
little agoggled in his drunken eyes.

"But the same may be said of every feeling," rej