It's
impossible."
"Attestin' to it will make your hair stand on eend too, I suppose,"
said I; "but it's as true as preachin' for all that. What will you bet
it didn't happen?"
"Tut, man, nonsense," said he, "I tell you the thing is impossible."
"Ah!" said I, "that's because you have been lucky, and never saw a
riprorious hurricane in all your life. I'll tell you how it was. I
bought a blood-hound from a man in Regent's Park, just afore I sailed,
and the brute got sea-sick, and then took the mange, and between that
and death starin' him in the face, his hair all came off, and in
course it blew away. Is that impossible?"
"Well, well," said he, "you have the most comical way with you of any
man I ever see. I am sure it ain't in your nature to speak of death in
that careless manner, you only talked that way to draw me out. I know
you did. It's not a subject however to treat lightly, and if you are
not inclined to be serious just now, tell us a story."
"Serious," sais I, "I am disposed to be; but not sanctimonious, and
you know that. But here goes for a story, which has a nice little
moral in it too.
"'Once on a time, when pigs were swine, and turkeys chewed tobacco,
and little birds built their nests in old men's beards.'
"Pooh!" said he, turning off huffy like, as if I was a goin' to bluff
him off. "I wonder whether supper is ready?"
"Cutler," sais I, "come back, that's a good fellow, and I'll tell you
the story.
Pages:
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58