"You don't say so?" gasped he at length, after turning more colors than a
pirate runs up, one after the other, when chased by a man-of-war. "Are you
quite sure he said that? Well, at all events I am in for it now, and may
as well put a bold face upon the matter. Here goes, then -- ahem!"

At this the little old gentleman seemed pleased -- God only knows why. He
left his station at the nook of the bridge, limped forward with a gracious
air, took Dammit by the hand and shook it cordially, looking all the while
straight up in his face with an air of the most unadulterated benignity
which it is possible for the mind of man to imagine.

"I am quite sure you will win it, Dammit," said he, with the frankest of
all smiles, "but we are obliged to have a trial, you know, for the sake of
mere form."

"Ahem!" replied my friend, taking off his coat, with a deep sigh, tying a
pocket-handkerchief around his waist, and producing an unaccountable
alteration in his countenance by twisting up his eyes and bringing down
the corners of his mouth -- "ahem!" And "ahem!" said he again, after a
pause; and not another word more than "ahem!" did I ever know him to say
after that. "Aha!" thought I, without expressing myself aloud -- "this is
quite a remarkable silence on the part of Toby Dammit, and is no doubt a
consequence of his verbosity upon a previous occasion. One extreme induces
another. I wonder if he has forgotten the many unanswerable questions
which he propounded to me so fluently on the day when I gave him my last
lecture? At all events, he is cured of the transcendentals."

"Ahem!" here replied Toby, just as if he had been reading my thoughts, and
looking like a very old sheep in a revery.