into
a roar of laughter, and all the ladies tittered."

"You were rather severe on the Scotchman, Jasper."

"Not at all, brother, and suppose I were, he began first; I am the
civilest man in the world, and never interfere with anybody, who lets me
and mine alone. He finds fault with Romany, forsooth! why, L-d A'mighty,
what's Scotch? He doesn't like our songs; what are his own? I
understand them as little as he mine; I have heard one or two of them,
and pretty rubbish they seemed. But the best of the joke is, the
fellow's finding fault with Piramus's fiddle--a chap from the land of
bagpipes finding fault with Piramus's fiddle! Why, I'll back that fiddle
against all the bagpipes in Scotland, and Piramus against all the
bagpipers; for though Piramus weighs but ten stone, he shall flog a
Scotchman of twenty."

"Scotchmen are never so fat as that," said I, "unless indeed, they have
been a long time pensioners of England. I say, Jasper, what remarkable
names your people have!"

"And what pretty names, brother; there's my own, for example, Jasper;
then there's Ambrose and Sylvester; then there's Culvato, which signifies
Claude; then there's Piramus--that's a nice name, brother."

"Then there's your wife's name, Pakomovna; then there's Ursula and
Morella."

"Then, brother, there's Ercilla."

"Ercilla! the name of the great poet of Spain, how wonderful; then
Leviathan."

"The name of a ship, brother; Leviathan was named after a ship, so don't
make a wonder out of her. But there's Sanpriel and Synfye."

"Ay, and Clementina and Lavinia, Camillia and Lydia, Curlanda and
Orlanda; wherever did they get those names?"

"Where did my wife get her necklace, brother?"

"She knows best, Jasper. I hope--"

"Come, no hoping! She got it from her grandmother, who died at the age
of a hundred and three, and sleeps in Coggeshall churchyard. She got it
from her mother, who also died very old, and who could give no other
account of it than that it had been in the family time out of mind."

"Whence could they have got it?"

"Why, perhaps where they got their names, brother. A gentleman, who had
travelled much, once told me that he had seen the sister of it about the
neck of an Indian queen."

"Some of your names, Jasper, appear to be church names; your own, for
example, and Ambrose, and Sylvester; perhaps you got them from the
Papists, in the times of Popery; but where did you get such a name as
Piramus, a name of Gr