"I hadn't observed any lack of increase in your amiable race, sir."
"Ye hadn't, hadn't yer?" said Captain Pharo, in the voice of a smouldering volcano, laying a fresh match to his pipe.
"Moderation," liquidly pealed in the voice of Captain Leezur—"moderation 's the rewl——"
"'N' I'll tell ye of another optional act o' ourn 't ye repeals; but ye can tell 'em 't we git it jest the same—though it 's racktified 'tell it 's p'ison."
"Ye can't all'as git it, even racktified," said Shamgar: "onct when the boat wa'n't in for a couple o' weeks, I got kind o' desp'rit over a pain in my chist; hadn't nothin' but two bottles o' 'Lightnin' External Rheumatiz Cure,' so I took 'em straight. They said 't for a spell thar' I was the howlin'est case o' drunk they ever see."
"The wu'st case o' 'nebr'ancy this State 's ever known," said Captain Dan Kirtland, "was a man up to Callis jail, 't had been 'bleedged to take a spree on 'lemon extract;' he sot fire t' everything he could lay his hand to."
"Look a' that, will ye?" said Captain Pharo to the haughty Washingtonian; "yit you don't know nothin' 'bout ructions. You can repeal every optional act 't a man makes, but you ain't got no idee o' ructions——"
Captain Pharo's voice had now reached such a pathetic and eloquent pitch that Captain Judah left his trumpet in the ball-room and joined us, in time to mingle with the cheers that were still further discomfiting the high and hot-headed young man.
"What you talkin' about?" retorted the latter through his dazzling white teeth. "I'm not in politics."
"Why didn't ye say so, then?" said Captain Pharo calmly, "and not keep me standin' here wastin' my breath on ye?"