countenance, so that you shall tell a man a most bare-faced falsehood,
and afterwards adduce such connected proofs as especially characterize
actual facts. The following dialogue is a specimen of the talents of
the aforementioned mendacious personages.

C.--"See a man walk after he was shot dead! so have I, a whole day's
march."

B.--"Come, come, that's stealing a march on our senses. No, no, it
won't do: that's a naked one; do pray turn them out with some kind of
probability covering over them."

C.--"What, doubt my veracity;"

B.--"Not for the world; that would be illiberal and unkind, and by the
way, now I think on it, I believe the possibility of a man travelling
without his _cranium,_ for at the battle of Laswaree, during that
desperate contest for British India, I saw a sergeant of the
seventy-sixth shot dead; yet the fellow pursued his antagonist some
hundred yards afterwards, threatening vengeance on the miscreant for
having robbed the service of one of its best men. Finding himself weak
from loss of blood, he deliberately unscrewed his head, threw it
violently at the foe, and took him on the spine; down he tumbled; the
veteran jumped upon him; fearful was the struggle; chest to chest,
fist to fist; at last they joined in the death grapple, and dreadful
indeed was their dying hug."

C.--"My dear friend, I was an eye witness of the whole transaction.
You have however forgotten the best part of the story. After the
sergeant had well pummelled his enemy, he picked up his head again,