|
Ruthven placed her pipe down on her plate and lifted her tankard, taking a small swallow more to whet her throat than to imbibe. She smacked her lips in imitation of Falco--an imitation which Eodwine caught but none others-- stood up, and began her recitation.
Her voice seasoned with age and experience rang out: "Falco watched with a squinty eye the retreating back of the bully and mimed the bully's movements, shoulders swaggering with exaggeration and mein all puffy and self-important. He heard a chortle or two or three behind him. Then he turned to the lollylaggers. 'Well now,' he says, 'I wasn't expectin' such intelligent compliance from the likes of Buffin and Bub.'
'Beggin' yer pardon, to whom are you undressin?' asked one of the shovel-holders.
'It ain't 'undressin'; it's 'addressin', ' says the other shovelshelf. 'An we's now gettin' into the addressin' of things.'
'A serious matter by all means,' spoke up Falco, who was beginning to realise that these two ruffa-muffa-bins might be more fun than he expected.
'Well then this h'ad-dressing don't mean no fight,' retorts the first.
'I presume you mean, it's a bark but no bite?' inquires our Shire hero. At this, Ruthven looks over at Falco, with a nod and a grin and a wink. Falco, unsure of quite where Ruthven is leading with the story this way, nods in a formally dignified way. She continues.
'He means,' says Twaddle, replying as if he acknowledged himself as Buffin, 'he means he's a simple soul what don't wants no trouble.'
'Nuffin simpe 'bout me,' retorts Gob, surely proving himself a Bub.
'Noes, I means,' says Twaddle, 'you relishes a bit of clowning around, you does.'
'Oh,' replies the shovelmaster, twirling it around in the ground for good measure. 'We's not like 'im 'er--here he nodded t'wards the halfling--wif his dignity acomin out of 'im like a bit o' stale air.'
Falco sniffed and considered taking umbrage at this.
'Now, sherbets I thinks,' continued Twaddle, 'they's all into dignity and formality, but we sorts, we jist gambol and gaffaw, hail and shout.' Twaddle leaned harder onto his shovel and looked Falco fairly in the eye."
With this, Ruthven retired, taking another sip of her tankard, nodding to all, and sitting back down again, wondering who else would take up the tale.
|