"And Ike knows that I would be the last person in the world to slur a gentleman from whom I as well as the others have received so much instruction."
Ike was mystified. He looked at the other members of the committee and then into the faces of the group. He couldn't make it out.
"If it's all the same, Mr. Chairman, since the gentleman has said there was too many fools on the committee, and has just explained that he didn't mean any one of us three, I'll be obliged if he'll explain who in thunder he did mean."
This sounded unanswerable, but the cunning Budge was equal to the occasion.
"It gives me pleasure to answer the question of the gentleman: my remark was made in a Pickwickian sense."
He leaned forward with a beaming smile, as if his explanation left nothing to be added. No one understood to what he referred, but all were too proud to admit the fact. There was a general nodding of heads, and Ike, with the manner of a man who magnanimously accepts the humble apology of him whom he has worsted, leaned back on his stool and audibly remarked:
Budge Isham resumed his seat, when he was reminded that he was expected to submit a name for the new settlement.
"I beg pardon," he said, rising again, "it is a fact known to this highly intelligent assemblage, that every city of prominence in Europe has from one to forty namesakes in this country. There is one exception, however; doubtless all know to what city I refer."
In response to his inquiring looks, the group tried to appear as if the name was familiar to them, but no one spoke.
"It is hardly necessary for me to mention the city, but I may say it is Constantinople."
A contemptuous sniff greeted this proposal.
"That's the worst yet," said Wade Ruggles, drawing a match along the thigh of his trousers to relight his pipe, which had gone out during the excitement; "the man that insults this party with such a proposition, ought to be run out of the place."
"What's the matter with it?" demanded Budge.
"It's too long in the fust place," commented Ike Hoe; "it bothers a man to git his mouth around it and it hain't any music, like the other names such as Starvation Kenyon, Hangman's Noose, Blizzard Gorge and the rest. I stick to mine as the purtiest of all."