retty 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 Grecian romance? Then some of them appear to be
Slavonian; for example, Mikailia and Pakomovna. I don't know much of
Slavonian; but . . ."

"What is Slavonian, brother?"

"The family name of certain nations, the principal of which is the
Russian, and from which the word slave is originally derived. You have
heard of the Russians, Jasper?"

"Yes, brother; and seen some. I saw their crallis at the time of the
peace; he was not a bad-looking man for a Ru