Nothin' is strange, though, when it is said of us, and
the absurder it is, the truer it is. I can bam as well
as any man when bam is the word, but when fact is the
play, I am right up and down, and true as a trivet. I
won't deceive you; I'll prove it.

"There was a Kurnel Dun--dun--plague take his name, I
can't recollect it, but it makes no odds--I know _he_ is
Dun for, though, that's a fact. Well, he was a British
kurnel, that was out to Halifax when I was there. I know'd
him by sight, I didn't know him by talk, for I didn't
fill then the dignified situation I now do, of Attache.
I was only a clockmaker then, and I suppose he wouldn't
have dirtied the tip eend of his white glove with me
then, any more than I would sile mine with him now, and
very expensive and troublesome things them white gloves
be too; there is no keepin' of them clean. For my part,
I don't see why a man can't make his own skin as clean
as a kid's, any time; and if a feller can't be let shake
hands with a gall except he has a glove on, why ain't he
made to cover his lips, and kiss thro' kid skin too.

"But to get back to the kurnel, and it's a pity he hadn't
had a glove over his mouth, that's a fact. Well, he went
home to England with his regiment, and one night when he
was dinin' among some first chop men, nobles and so on,
they sot up considerable late over their claret; and poor
thin cold stuff it is too, is claret. A man _may_ get
drowned in it, but how the plague he can get drunk with
it is dark to me. It's like every thing else French, it