chee, chee, chee, that way, I know.'

"Now when your gun, Squire, was a knockin' over Blue-nose,
and makin' a proper fool of him, and a knockin' over
Jonathan, and a spilin' of his bran-new clothes, the
English sung out chee, chee, chee, till all was blue
agin. You had an excellent gun entirely then: let's see
if they will sing out chee, chee, chee, now, when we take
a shot at _them_. Do you take?" and he laid his thumb on
his nose, as if perfectly satisfied with the application
of his story. "Do you take, Squire? you have an excellent
gun entirely, as Pat says. It's what I call puttin' the
leake into 'em properly. If you had a written this book
fust, the English would have said your gun was no good;
it wouldn't have been like the rifles they had seen.
Lord, I could tell you stories about the English, that
would make even them cryin' devils the Mississippi
crocodiles laugh, if they was to hear 'em."

"Pardon me, Mr. Slick," I said, "this is not the temper
with which you should visit England."

"What is the temper," he replied with much warmth, "that
they visit us in? Cuss 'em! Look at Dickens; was there
ever a man made so much of, except La Fayette? And who
was Dickens? Not a Frenchman that is a friend to us, not
a native that has a claim on us; not a colonist, who,
though English by name is still an American by birth,
six of one and half a dozen of t'other, and therefore a
kind of half-breed brother. No! he was a cussed Britisher;