"You ain't Tribune reporters—be you?"
"We were all noes and no ayes." Quite a feature in social intercourse, my boy.
The aged Chivalry caused three fresh chairs to be placed at the table, and having failed to discharge the fowling-piece which he had pointed at Captain Bob Shorty, by reason of dampness in the cap, he waved us to seats, and says he:
"Sit down, poor hirelings of a gorilla despot, and learn what it is to taste the hospitality of a Southern gentleman. You are Lincoln hordes," says the Chivalry, shaking his white locks, "and have come to butcher the Southern Confederacy; but the Southern gentleman knows how to be courteous, even to a vandal foe."
Here the Chivalry switched out a cane which he had concealed behind him, and made a blow at Captain Bob Shorty.
"See here," says Bob, indignantly, "I'll be—"
"Hush!" says the conservative Kentucky chap, agitatedly, "don't irritate the old patriarch, or future amicable reconstruction of the Union will be out of the question. He is naturally a little provoked just now," says the Kentucky chap, soothingly, "but we must show him that we are his friends."
We all sat down in peace at the hospital board, my boy, only a few sweet potatoes and corn-cobs being thrown by the children, and found the fare to be in keeping with the situation of our distracted country—I may say, war-fare.
"In consequence of the blockade of the Washington Ape," says the Chivalry, pleasantly, "we only have one course, you see; but even these last-year's sweet potatoes must be luxuries to mercenary mud-sills accustomed to husks."
I had just reached out my plate, to be helped, my boy, when there came a great noise from the Mackerels in the front door-yard.