of the whaler who tried to make a sailor say his prayers?’ says I.
“‘It occurs to me that I have never been so fortunate,’ says the colonel.
“So I told it to him. Laugh! I was wishing to myself that he was a customer. What a bill of glass I’d sell him! And then he says:
“‘The relating of anecdotes and humorous occurrences has always seemed to me, Mr. Pescud, to be a particularly agreeable way of promoting and perpetuating amenities between friends. With your permission, I will relate to you a fox-hunting story with which I was personally connected, and which may furnish, you some amusement.’
“So he tells it. It takes forty minutes by the watch. Did I laugh? Well, say! When I got my face straight he calls in old Pete, the super-annuated darky, and sends him down to the hotel to bring up my valise. It was Elmcroft for me while I was in the town.
“Two evenings later I got a chance to speak a word with Miss Jessie alone on the porch while the colonel was thinking up another story.
“‘It’s going to be a fine evening,’ says I.
“‘He’s coming,’ says she. ‘He’s going to tell you, this time, the story about the old negro
