I know that my dog hath a spirit within,
That cannot be crushed by abuse.
JIM DUDLEY’S FLIGHT.
That blabbing Hoosier, Bob Browser, has found me out, and paid me a call, boring me with his confounded stories. Even as a hungry parrot when crackers are in view, or as a miller’s hopper when water is high and the farmer’s meal bags low, he rattles right along with copious discourse.
“What’s that you say! Did you know Jim Dudley? What! him as the boys in Gosport used to call Carrot Top Jim? Wal, I’ll be rattled if that ain’t queer. Wasn’t he the allfiredest shirk you ever did see? Perhaps you remember how sudden he left Gosport jest before the war? Oh, that’s so, sure enough, you went north sometime afore that.
BOB BROWSER.
“Wal, that chap was etarnally gettin’ in some scrape or another; I do jest think I’ve helped that Jim out of more close corners than there are buildin’s in this yer town. Yer see him and me was great chums, and roomed at the same house on York Street. Jim was a courtin’ a butcher’s darter that lived out near the cem’t’ry for ‘bout a year afore he left, leastwise he was a totin’ of her around considerable, takin’ her to picnics, circuses, hoss races, and the like. I kind of had my doubts about him gettin’ married, ’cause he was a pooty sot ole batch’, and sometimes I’d ask him when the nuptils were a comin’ off; but he’d allers shuffle out of it by sayin’ when they did come I’d git an invite, and kind of larf it off jest that way.
“One night pooty soon arter I had got into bed I heered some one thumpin’ at my door, and afore I had time to say anythin’ Jim Dudley was plum across the room and standin’ by the bedside.