Oh, the songs that were sung, and the tales that were told, the yarns that were spun, and the jokes that were cracked in those few nights! "Old songs," you say, "that we had each sung hundreds of times before, and should have thought intolerably wearisome had we heard them on one another's lips! Tales for which we were each prepared, and of which we had sometimes even to remind one another in order that the lawful owners should dispense them! Yarns which only the narrator believed, and that, probably, only from force of repetition! And jokes—God save the mark!—mellow already when they were cracked in the fo'k'sle of the ark!" Likely enough, gentle cynic. There is nothing new; the freshest lily is as old as the world. The "merry jest" may, as Andrew Lang sings, descend to us from some Aryan brain. But the laughter is our own, and that is all that concerns us.
"Hand me the canteen again, then," says the Major, as with his swarthy face beaming joyously in the fire-light, he stands moistening the sugar for a second round of toddies, in obedience to a general request. "You boys remind me of the fellow who said that, 'When he had taken one drink it always made him feel like another man, and then, of course, in common politeness he felt obliged to treat the other man.'"
A general laugh followed the Major's sally.
"Do you remember Bat Hogan, at Georgetown, Major?—a fellow with a hare-lip," asked Huse.
"Bat Hogan? Yes—every cold night that I miss the pair of Navajo blankets he stole from me."
"Bat came in up there from a long drive on the stage one night, and got hold of the whisky-bottle and a tumbler at the bar. Well, sir, he poured himself out a full glass of it. 'Say! that ain't cider, you know,' said the bar-tender. 'I shoul' hope no',' said Bat. 'I woul'n't drink tha' much cider for a thousan' dollars.'"
A score of similar anecdotes succeeded this one. The Colonel stroked his beard, removed his cigar deliberately, pausing every now and then as deliberately at exciting junctures to keep it alight, and reeled off a few; and by degrees the conversation drifted on to cards and gambling.
"Were you there, Colonel, the night that the fellows put that job up on Mills' partner?" asked F.
"Why, of course I was. Didn't Tom Templeton come down to the 'Depôt' to tell us about it? It was the night that that dance was going on there,—when Skippy said that when old Mac danced he put on so much style that 'he only touched on the high places as he floated round the room.'"