'
"'What?' said M'Clure.
"'Why,' sais he, 'I gave him,' and he bent forward towards his hear as
if to whisper the word, 'I gave him a most thunderin' everlastin'
loud--' and he gave a yell into his hear that was eard clean across
the harbour, and at the ospital beyond the dockyard, and t'other way
as far as Fresh-water Bridge. Nothin' was hever eard like it before.
"M'Clure sprang backwards the matter of four or five feet, and placed
his hand on his side arms, while the countryman brayed out a horse
laugh that nearly took away one's earing. The truck-men gate him a
cheer, for they are all Irishmen, and they don't like soldiers
commonly on account of their making them keep the peace at ome at
their meetin' of monsters, and there was a general commotion in the
market. We beat a retreat, and when we got out of the crowd, sais I,
'M'Clure, that comes of arguing with every one you meet. It's a bad
habit.'
"'I wasn't arguing,' sais he, quite short, 'I was only asking
questions, and how can you ever learn if you don't inquire?'
"Well, when he got to the barrack, he got a book wrote by a Frenchman,
called Buffoon."
"A capital name," sais I, "for a Frenchman," but he didn't take, for
there is no more fun in an Englishman than a dough pudding, and went
on without stopping.
"Sais he, 'this author is all wrong. He calls it han 'horiginal,' but
he ain't a native animal, it's half English and half Yankee.
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