'I guessed I'd dine with you to-day,' said Nim, marching on before his host. With equal coolness, as soon as the dish of trout appeared, he transfixed the largest with his case-knife.
'Not so fast, my friend,' interrupted Mr. Holt, bringing back the captive. 'We divide fair here, though it's not Yankee law, I'm aware.'
'Ah, you warn't born yesterday,' rejoined Nim, showing his yellow teeth, which seemed individually made and set after the pattern of his father's. 'You're a smart man, I guess—raised in Amerikay, an' no mistake.'
'But come, Andy,' said Arthur, 'tell us where you caught these fine trout? You've altogether made a brilliant effort to-day in the purveying line: the cakes are particularly good.'
'They're what them French fellers call "galettes,"' observed Nimrod, biting one. 'Flour an' water, baked in the ashes. Turnpike bread is better—what the ole gall makes to hum.'
Be it remarked that this periphrasis indicated his mother; and that the bread he alluded to is made with a species of leaven.
'So ye ate turnpikes too,' remarked Andy, obliquely glancing at the speaker. 'The English language isn't much help to a man in this counthry, where everythin' manes somethin' else. Well, Misther Arthur, about the trout; you remimber I went down to the "Corner" this mornin'. Now it's been on my mind some days back, that ye'd want a few shirts washed.'
'But what has that to do with the trout'—interrupted Arthur, laughing.
'Whisht awhile, an' you'll hear. I didn't know how to set about it, no more than the child of a month old; for there's an art in it, of coorse, like in everythin' else; an' one time I thried to whiten a shirt of my own—beggin' yer honours' pardon for mintionin' the article—it kem out of the pot blacker than it wint in. So sez I to meself, "I'll look out for the clanest house, an' I'll ax the good woman to tache me how to wash a thing;" an' I walks along from the store to a nate little cabin back from the river, that had flowers growin' in the front; an' sure enough, the floor was as clane as a dhrawin' room, an' a dacent tidy little woman kneadin' a cake on the table. "Ma'am," sez I, "I'm obliged to turn washerwoman, an' I don't know how;" but she only curtseyed, and said somethin' in a furrin tongue.'
'A French Canadian, I suppose,' said Mr. Wynn.