In vain the waiter told him that at any time he could have his “calf-o-lay” (French).
“Lay!” sez he; “that’s jest what I want to get rid on—lay! Do you spoze that after gittin’ up at five o’clock all my life, I’m a-goin’ to lay abed till noon?” And then the waiter murmured sunthin’ agin about “calf-o-lay.”
“Calf-o-lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted.
And that madded Josiah agin, and sez he, “What of it—what if calves do lay! I hain’t a calf or a ox!” he shouted. “You think,” sez he, “that because I come from the country that you can go on with your insultin’ talk about calves, and intimate that I’m a calf. But I’ll let you know that you’ve got holt of the wrong individual to impose upon. Keep your dum breakfast till noon if you want to and starve a man to death, but you shall not call me a calf.”
I interrupted him and told him that he meant coffee with milk.
“Coffee and milk!” he hollered; “what is that to feed a starvin’ man?” Sez he, “I want pork and beans and potaters and slap-jacks.”
Wall, the waiter wuz skairt most to death, but I quieted my pardner down, and the next time I had a chance I bought two paper bags of cookies and sech, to appease the worst cravin’s of hunger, and administered ’em to him as I had need.
Another memory is seein’ the bathers goin’ in at Havre, and the trials I had with my pardner a-keepin’ him out of the briny surf.
