"No, sir," said Tom, "but you need not have been in a passion."
"Not in a passion! Mr. Sheridan," said the squire, "you don't know, sir, what these preserves have cost me, and the pains and trouble I have been at with them; it's all very well for you to talk, but if you were in my place I should like to know what you would say upon such an occasion."
"Why, sir," said Tom, "if I were in your place, under all the circumstances, I should say—'I am convinced, Mr. Sheridan, you did not mean to annoy me; and, as you look a good deal tired, perhaps you'll come up to my house and take some refreshment?'"
The squire was hit hard by this nonchalance, and (as the newspapers say), "it is needless to add," acted upon Sheridan's suggestion.
"So far," said poor Tom, "the story tells for me,—now you shall hear the sequel."
After having regaled himself at the squire's house, and having said five hundred more good things than he swallowed; having delighted his host, and more than half won the hearts of his wife and daughters, the sportsman proceeded on his return homewards.
In the course of his walk he passed through a farm-yard; in the front of the farm-house was a green, in the centre of which was a pond, in the pond were ducks innumerable swimming and diving; on its verdant banks a motley group of gallant cocks and pert partlets, picking and feeding—the farmer was leaning over the hatch of the barn, which stood near two cottages on the side of the green.
Tom hated to go back with an empty bag; and having failed in his attempts at higher game, it struck him as a good joke to ridicule the exploits of the day himself, in order to prevent any one else from doing it for him, and he thought to carry home a certain number of the domestic inhabitants of the pond and its vicinity would serve the purpose admirably. Accordingly, up he goes to the farmer and accosts him very civilly—
"My good friend," says Tom, "I'll make you an offer."
"Of what, sur?" says the farmer.