"'But thar's bitterness to follow vict'ry. Jeff emerges like Diana
from the bath an' frales the wamus off me with a club. Talk of puttin'
a crimp in folks! Gents when Jeff's wrath is assuaged I'm all on one
side like the leanin' tower of Pisa. Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee
to my spinal column.

"'A week later my folks takes me to a doctor. That practitioner puts
on his specs an' looks me over with jealous care.

"'"Whatever's wrong with him, Doc?" says my father.

"'"Nothin'," says the physician, "only your son Willyum's five inches
out o' plumb."

"'Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an' stay-laths, an' I
has to wear it; an' mebby in three or four weeks he's got me warped
back into the perpendic'lar.'

"'But how about this cat hunt?" asks Dan Boggs. 'Which I don't aim to
be introosive none, but I'm camped yere through the second drink
waitin' for it, an' these procrastinations is makin' me kind o' batty.'

"'That panther hunt is like this,' says the Colonel turnin' to Dan.
'At the age of seventeen, me an' eight or nine of my intimate brave
comrades founds what we-all denom'nates as the "Chevy Chase Huntin'
Club." Each of us maintains a passel of odds an' ends of dogs, an' at
stated intervals we convenes on hosses, an' with these fourscore curs
at our tails goes yellin' an' skally-hootin' up an' down the
countryside allowin' we're shore a band of Nimrods.