“No, master, if my head had been snicked off I couldn’t ha’ bin here.” And he laughed a loud ha! ha! ha!
And Mr. Bumpkin laughed a loud haw! haw! haw! at this tremendous witticism. It was not much of a
witticism, perhaps, after all, when duly considered, but it answered the purpose as well as the very best, and produced as much pleasure as the most brilliant repartee, in the most fashionable circles. We must take people as they are.
So Joe stayed chattering away till dinner-time, and then, referring to the pudding, said he had never tasted anything like it in his life; and went on telling the old people all the wonders of the campaign: how their regiment just mowed down the enemy as he used to cut corn in the harvest-field, and how nothing could stand aginst a charge of cavalry; and how they liked their officers; and how their General, who warn’t above up to Joe’s shoulder, were a genleman, every inch on him, an’ as brave as any lion you could pick out. And so he went on, until Mr. Bumpkin said:
“An’ if I had my time over agin I’d goo for a soger too, Joe,” which made Mrs. Bumpkin laugh and ask what would become of her.
“Ha! ha! ha! look at that!” said Joe; “she’s got you there, master.”
“No she bean’t, she’d a married thic feller that wur so sweet on her afore I had ur.”
“What, Jem?” said Mrs. Bumpkin, “why I wouldn’t ha’ had un, Tom, if every ’air had been hung wi’ dimonds.”
“Now look at that,” laughed Joe.
And so they went on until it was time to take a turn round the farm. Everything seemed startled at Joe’s fine clothes, especially the bull, who snorted and pawed the earth and put out his tail, and placed his head to the ground, until Joe called him by name, and then, as he told his comrades afterwards in barracks, the bull said: