"How was that?"
"The whole brood of the Stubbs, bag and baggage, passed here this afternoon."
"Thank Heaven they did not stop."
"They came in their private carriage. I nodded to Ben, and touched my hat to Mrs. S. You should have seen their faces. They thought there must be something out of joint in the mechanism of the universe, when a person of their acquaintance could be seen smoking a pipe at a tavern door, like a bog-trotting Irishman."
"You should have asked Ben to go with us."
"It would be the worst martyrdom the poor devil ever had to pass through. Ben seemed displeased with the scenery. He says that the White Mountains are nothing to any one who, like himself, has seen the Alps."
"Pray when did Stubb see the Alps?"
"O, the whole family have seen the Alps,—the Alps, Italy, the Rhine, the nobility and gentry, and every thing else that Europe affords. They all swear by Europe, and hold the soil of America dirt cheap. You can see with half an eye what they are—an uncommonly bad imitation of an indifferent model."
"Let them pass for what they are worth. Have you come armed and equipped—rifle, blanket, hatchet, and so forth?"
"Yes, and I have brought an oil cloth tent."