“Good luck to ye!” said Larry, nodding facetiously to the man, as he put a tin mug to his lips, and drained its contents to the bottom. “Ha! it’s the potheen I’m fond of; not but that I’ve seen better; faix I’ve seldom tasted worse, but there’s a vartue in goold-diggin’ that would make akifortis go down like milk—it would. Will ye try a drop?”
Larry filled the pannikin as he spoke, and handed it to the Yankee, who, nothing loth, drained it, and returned it empty, with thanks.
“They’re diggin’ goold out o’ the cabin floors, are they?” said Larry, wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his shirt.
“They air,” answered the man. “One feller dug up three hundred dollars yesterday, from the very spot where he’s bin snorin’ on the last six months.”
“Ah! thin that’s a purty little sum,” said Larry, with a leer that shewed he didn’t believe a word of it. “Does he expect more to-morrow, think ye?”
“Don’t know,” said the man, half offended at the doubt thus cast on his veracity; “ye better go an’ ax him. Good day, stranger;” and the Yankee strode away rapidly.
Larry scratched his head; then he rubbed his nose, and then his chin, without, apparently, deriving any particular benefit from these actions. After that, he looked up at Ah-wow, who was seated cross-legged on the ground opposite to him, smoking, and asked him what was his opinion.
“Dun no,” said the Chinaman, without moving a muscle of his stolid countenance.
“Oh! ye’re an entertainin’ cratur, ye are; I’ll just make a hole here where I sit, an’ see what comes of it. Sure it’s better nor doin’ nothin’.”
Saying this, Larry refilled his empty pipe, stretched himself at full length on his side, rested his head on his left hand, and smoked complacently for three minutes; after which he took up the long sheath-knife, with which he had just cut up his supper, and began carelessly to turn over the sod.