Wigman and Onslow drank to the sentiment, but Kenrick, calling a negro waiter, handed the glass to him, and said: “Throw that to the pigs, and bring me a fresh glass.”
“Halloo! What the deuce do you mean by that?” cried Robson. “Have we a Bourbon among us? Have we a Yankee sympathizer among us? Is it possible? Does Mr. Charles Kenrick of Kenrick, son of Robert Kenrick, Esq., Confederate M. C., and heir to a thousand niggers, refuse to drink to the downfall of Abolitionism, and those other isms against which we’ve drawn the sword and flung away the scabbard?”
“Yes, by Jove!” interposed Wigman. “And we’ll welcome our invaders with—with—”
“With bloody hands to hospitable graves,” said Robson. “Speak quick, my Wigman. That’s the Southern formula, I believe, invented, like the new song of Dixie, by an impertinent Yankee. It’s devilish hard we have to import from these blasted Yankees the very slang and music we turn against them.”
“Answer me, Mr. Charles Kenrick,” said Wigman, assuming a front of judicial severity, “did you mean any offence to the Confederacy by dishonoring the sentiment of hostility to its enemy?”
“Damn the Confederacy!” said Kenrick.
“Hear him,” said Robson. “Was there ever such blasphemy? Please write it down, Onslow, that he damns the Confederacy. And write Wigman down an—No matter for that part of it! We shall hear Kenrick blaspheming slavery by and by.”
“Damn slavery!” said Kenrick.
“Kenrick is joking,” said Onslow.
“Kenrick was never more serious in his life, Mr. Onslow!”