the epithet I had so unsparingly clapped upon his conduct.
"My lad," says I, "confound you! Why couldn't you contrive to let me know, you unreasonable being, that a deed like this was in your mind? You wretched men are all alike, so monstrously unreasonable! How should I know that when you threw your pistol down you were trying to play the gentleman? I say, confound you! But here, here's my hand. Kiss it, and we'll say no more about it."
The lad went gallantly upon one knee in the straw, like a very well-bred person, and did as he was bidden, with something of a relish too.
"Mr. Baker's Son," says I, "I confess that I should be glad to see you rather more diffident at the audacity of this; and a little more humbly rejoiceful in your fortune. For, my lad, you are the first of your tribe and species to be thus honoured. And you will be the last, I'm thinking."
"I am none so sure of that," says he, with a marvellous equanimity, "for that depends upon my tribe and species. If they ever should desire to kiss your hand, I reckon that they'll do so."
"Don't be saucy, sir," says I, and put an imperious warning in my tone.
"Humph!" says he, "I'll admit it is a nice, clean, white one, and not so very fat. But when all is claimed, 'tis but a mortal woman's."
"Come, sir," I says, "this is not the time for talk. Not an instant must we lose if you are to escape the soldiers."
