the lake of Beccano. Now
from this same country of Ennasin, in case of need, above three hundred
thousand, all relations and of one family, might march out. Their degrees
of consanguinity and alliance are very strange; for being thus akin and
allied to one another, we found that none was either father or mother,
brother or sister, uncle or aunt, nephew or niece, son-in-law or
daughter-in-law, godfather or godmother, to the other; unless, truly, a tall
flat-nosed old fellow, who, as I perceived, called a little shitten-arsed
girl of three or four years old, father, and the child called him daughter.

Their distinction of degrees of kindred was thus: a man used to call a
woman, my lean bit; the woman called him, my porpoise. Those, said Friar
John, must needs stink damnably of fish when they have rubbed their bacon
one with the other. One, smiling on a young buxom baggage, said, Good
morrow, dear currycomb. She, to return him his civility, said, The like to
you, my steed. Ha! ha! ha! said Panurge, that is pretty well, in faith;
for indeed it stands her in good stead to currycomb this steed. Another
greeted his buttock with a Farewell, my case. She replied, Adieu, trial.
By St. Winifred's placket, cried Gymnast, this case has been often tried.
Another asked a she-friend of his, How is it, hatchet? She answered him,
At your service, dear helve. Odds belly, saith Carpalin, this helve and
this hatchet are well matched. As we went on, I saw one who, calling his
she-relation, styled her my crumb, and she called him, my crust.

Quoth one to a brisk, plump, juicy female, I am glad to see you, dear tap.
So am I to find you so merry, sweet spiggot, replied she. One called a
wench, his shovel; she called him, her peal: one named his, my slipper;
and she, my foot: another, my boot; she, my shasoon.

In the same degree of kindred, one called his, my butter; she called him,
my eggs; and they were akin just like a dish of buttered eggs. I heard one
call his, my tripe, and she him, my faggot. Now I could not, for the
heart's blood of me, pick out or discover what parentage, alliance,
affinity, or consanguinity was between them, with reference to our custom;
only they told us that she was faggot's tripe. (Tripe de fagot means the
smallest sticks in a faggot.) Another, complimenting his convenient, said,
Yours, my shell; she replied, I was yours before, sweet oyster. I reckon,
said Carpalin, she hath gutted his oyster.