“Yev hed a long ride, Josh,” said he, leaning towards the table and clutching hold of the bottle: “try a taste o’ this hyur rot-gut—’taint the daintiest o’ drink to offer a man so genteelly dressed as you air this morning; but thur’s wuss licker in these hyur back’oods, I reckun. Will ye mix? Thur’s water in the jug thar.”
“No water for me,” was the laconic reply. “Yur right ’bout that. Its from old Hatcher’s still—whar they us’ally put the water in afore they give ye the licker. I s’pose they do it to save a fellur the trouble o’ mixing—Ha! ha! ha!” The squatter laughed at his own jest-mot as if he enjoyed it to any great extent, but rather as if desirous of putting his visitor in good-humour. The only evidence of his success was a dry smile, that curled upon the thin lip of the saint, rather sarcastically than otherwise.
There was silence while both drank; and Holt was again under the necessity of beginning the conversation. As already observed, he had noticed the altered style of the schoolmaster’s costume; and it was to this transformation that his next speech alluded. “Why, Josh,” said he, attempting an easy off-hand style of talk, “ye’re bran new, spick span, from head to foot; ye look for all the world jest like one o’ them ere cantin’ critters o’ preechers I often see prowlin’ about Swampville. Durn it, man! what dodge air you up to now. You hain’t got rileegun, I reck’n?”
“I have,” gravely responded Stebbins.
“Hooraw! ha, ha, ha! Wal—what sort o’ thing is’t anyhow?”
“My religion is of the right sort, Brother Holt.”
“Methody?”
“Nothing of the kind.”
“What then? I thort they wur all Methodies in Swampville?”
“They’re all Gentiles in Swampville—worse than infidels themselves.”