myself. I'll go in up to the handle, on Old Clay. I have
a hundred thousand dollars of hard cash made in the
colonies, I'll go half of it on the old hoss, hang me if
I don't, and I'll make him as well knowd to England as
he is to Nova Scotia.

"I'll allow him to be beat at fust, so as to lead 'em
on, and Clay is as cunnin' as a coon too, if he don't
get the word g'lang (go along) and the Indgian skelpin'
yell with it, he knows I ain't in airnest, and he'll
allow me to beat him and bully him like nothin'. He'll
pretend to do his best, and sputter away like a hen
scratchin' gravel, but he won't go one mossel faster,
for he knows I never lick a free hoss.

"Won't it be beautiful? How they'll all larf and crow,
when they see me a thrashin' away at the hoss, and then
him goin' slower, the faster I thrash, and me a threatenin'
to shoot the brute, and a talkin' at the tip eend of my
tongue like a ravin' distracted bed bug, and offerin' to
back him agin, if they dare, and planken down the pewter
all round, takin' every one up that will go the figur',
till I raise the bets to the tune of fifty thousand
dollars. When I get that far, they may stop their larfin'
till next time, I guess. That's the turn of the
fever--that's the crisis--that's my time to larf then.

"I'll mount the car then, take the bits of list up, put
'em into right shape, talk a little Connecticut Yankee
to the old hoss, to set his ebenezer up, and make him