A perspiring man in top-boots, a riding-whip in his hand, and having the air of a prosperous farmer, brushed in, like a stray bullock, among the rest, for a peep at the giant; having just entered through the arch, as the ladies passed out.
“Hearing that the man who took Ticonderoga was here in Pendennis Castle, I’ve ridden twenty-five miles to see him; and to-morrow my brother will ride forty for the same purpose. So let me have first look. Sir,” he continued, addressing the captive, “will you let me ask you a few plain questions, and be free with you?”
“Be free with me? With all my heart. I love freedom of all things. I’m ready to die for freedom; I expect to. So be free as you please. What is it?”
“Then, sir, permit me to ask what is your occupation in life—in time of peace, I mean?”
“You talk like a tax-gatherer,” rejoined Allen, squinting diabolically at him; “what is my occupation in life? Why, in my younger days I studied divinity, but at present I am a conjurer by profession.”
Hereupon everybody laughed, equally at the manner as the words, and the nettled farmer retorted:
“Conjurer, eh? well, you conjured wrong that time you were taken.”
“Not so wrong, though, as you British did, that time I took Ticonderoga, my friend.”
At this juncture the servant came with the punch, when his master bade him present it to the captive.
“No!—give it me, sir, with your own hands, and pledge me as gentleman to gentleman.”