Читать книгу Amusing Prose Chap Books - Various - Страница 33

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There was a Scotsman who dwelt at Gotham, and he took a house a little distance from London and turned it into an inn, and for his sign he would have a boar's head. Accordingly he went to a carver and said, "Can you make me a bare head?" "Yes," said the carver. "Then," said he, "make me a bare head, and thou'se hae twenty shillings for thy hire." "I will do it," said the carver. On St. Andrew's day before Christmas (called Yule in Scotland) the Scot came to London for his boar's head. "I say, speak," said the Scotsman, "hast thou made me a bare head?" "Yes," said the carver. He went and brought a man's head of wood that was bare, and said, "Sir, there is your bare head." "Ay," said the Scot, "the meikle de'il! is this a bare head?" "Yes," said the carver. "I say," said the Scotsman, "I will have a bare head like the head that follows a sow with gryces. What, fool, know you not a sow that will greet and groan and cry a-week, a-week." "What," said the carver, "do you mean a pig?" "Yes," said the Scotsman, "let me have her head made of timber, and set on her a scalp and let her sing, 'Whip whire.'" The carver said he could not. "You fool," said he, "gar her as she'd sing whip whire."