" The jolly subs look across the table and wink, for they
know that's all bunkum.
"Doctor," sais a new hand, "do you know if Cargill has sold his orses.
His leada is a cleverwish saut of thing, but the wheela is a riglar
bute. That's a goodish orse the Admewall wides; I wonder if he is
going to take him ome with him."
"Haven't heard--can't say. Jones, what's that thing that wont burn, do
you know? Confound the thing, I have got it on the tip of my tongue
too."
"Asphalt," sais Jones.
"No! that's not it; that's what wide-awakes are made of."
"Perhaps so," sais Gage, "ass'felt is very appropriate for a fool's
cap."
At which there is a great roar.
"No; but really what is it?"
"Is it arbutus?" sais Simpkins, "I think they make it at Killarney--"
"No, no; oh! I have it, asbestos; well, that's what I believe the
cigars here are made of--they won't go."
"There are a good many things here that are no go," sais Gage, "like
Perry's bills on Coutts; but, Smith, where did you get that flash
waistcoat I saw last night?"
"Oh! that was worked by a poor despairing girl at Bath, during a fit
of the scarlet fever."
"It was a memento mori then, I suppose," replies the other.
But all the talk is not quite so frivolous. Opposite to that large
stone edifice, is an old cannon standing on end at the corner of the
street, to keep carriages from trespassing on the pavement, and the
non-military assemble round it; they are civic great guns.
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