"Tharupon Enright cuts in.
"'Bug,' he says, all sociable an' suave, 'you mustn't mind Monte. He's so misconstructed that followin' the twenty-fifth drink he goes about takin' his ignorance for information. 161 No one doubts but you're a heap better jedge than him of eloquence, an' everything else except nosepaint. S'ppose you consider yourse'f a committee to act for the con'jint camps, an' invite this yere joorist to be present as orator of the day.'
"The Bug's brow cl'ars at this, an' he asshores Enright that he'll be proud to act as sech.
"'An', gents,' he adds, 'if you says he ain't got Patrick Henry beat to a standstill, may I never hold as good as aces-up ag'in.'
"The Red Dog chief announces that all hands must attend a free-for-all banquet which, inflooenced by the tenth drink, he then an' thar decides to give at Bland's Abe Lincoln House.
"'Said banquet,' he explains, 'bein' in the nacher of a lunch to be held at high noon. If the dinin' room of the Abe Lincoln House ain't spacious enough, an I'll say right yere it ain't, we'll teetotaciously set them tables in the street. That's my style! I wants everybody, bar Mexicans, to be present. When I gives a blow-out, I goes fo'th into the highways an' byways, an' asks the halt an' the lame an' 162 the blind, like the good book says. Also, no gent need go prowlin' 'round for no weddin' garments wharin to come. Which he's welcome to show up in goat-skin laiggin's, or appear wropped in the drippin' an' offensive pelt of a wet dog.'
"The Red Dog chief, lest some of us is sens'tive, goes on to add that no gent is to regyard them cracks about the halt an' the lame an' the blind as aimed at Wolfville. He allows he ain't that invidious, an' in what he says is merely out to be both euphonious an' explicit, that a-way, at one an' the same time.
"To which Enright reesponds that no offence is took, an' asshores the Red Dog chief that Wolfville will attend the banquet all spraddled out.
"More licker, followed by gen'ral congratulations.
"Bland ag'in comes surgin' to the fore. This time he thinks that as a main feachure it would be a highly effective racket to reënact the surrender of Cornwallis to Washington.