At length, the common thirst being in some measure assuaged, conversation of a more general nature became the order of the hour. The physician, and his companion, who was one of the two lawyers of the village, being considered the best qualified to maintain a public discourse with credit, were the principal speakers, though a remark was hazarded, now and then, by Mr. Doolittle, who was thought to be their inferior, only in the enviable point of education. A general silence was produced on all but the two speakers, by 'he following observation from the practitioner of the law:—
"So, Doctor Todd, I understand that you have been performing an important operation, this evening, by cutting a charge of buck-shot from the shoulder of the son of Leather-stocking?"
"Yes, sir," returned the other, elevating his little head, with an air of great importance, "I had a small job, up at the Judge's, in that way: it was. however, but a trifle to what it might have been, had it gone through the body. The shoulder is not a very vital part; and I think the young man will soon be well. But I did not know that the patient was a son of Leather-stocking: it is news to me, to hear that Natty had a wife."
"It is by no means a necessary consequence," returned the other, winking, with a shrewd look around the bar-room; "there is such a thing, I suppose you know, in law, as a 'filius nullius.'"
"Spake it out, man," exclaimed the landlady; "spake it out in king's English; what for should ye be talking Indian, in a room full of christian folks, though it is about a poor hunter, who is but a little bettor in his ways than the wild savages themselves? Och! it's to be hoped that the missionaries will, in his own time, make a convarsion of the poor divils; and then it will matter but lit-
