then his whimsical vagaries effectually defy repose; now settling with his tickling bandy legs upon your nose, and industriously insinuating his sharp proboscis, and anon abruptly buzzing in your earno secretoff he shoots again to his own music.

"There is no time to bandy words, Madam," he retorted warmly.

"My wife hasn't come here to bandy civilities.

"By my faith, if my kinsmen are to come and bandy arguments with the king, it may not be long before my company finds itself without its captain.

And so the scare-crows, scraggy ones, now come In turn; the lean, ill-favored, gawky, bald, Long-nosed, uncouth, raw-boned, and those with scald And freckled, frowsy, ricketty and squat, The stumpy, bandy-leggèd, gaunt, each bought A man; though ugly as a toad, they sold, For every man with her received his gold.

In his caustic fashion the old man describes these fops formed after the model of the Greek talkers of the agora, dealing in jests and witticisms, singing and dancing, ready for anything; such an one was, in his opinion, good for nothing but to exhibit himself as harlequin in a procession and to bandy talk with the publiche would sell his talk or his silence for a bit of bread.

They surrounded Elder Brown as he began to transfer himself to the hungry beast to whose motion he was more accustomed, and in the "hail fellow well met" style of the day began to bandy jests upon his appearance.

Yet he afterwards said, in his account of his interview with His Majesty, that it was not for him "to bandy compliments with his sovereign.

These were no other than four very dismal dogs, who came pattering in, headed by an old bandy dog, who erected himself upon his hind legs, and looked around at his companions, who immediately stood upon their hind legs in a grave and melancholy row.