“But the Yankees?” said I.
“Well, Sir, they are foreigners, you know, and only speak broken English; but they mix up a deal of words of their own with it, and then wonder you don’t understand them. They keep their mouths so busy chawing, they have to talk through their noses.
“A few days after that, Sir, we walked down to the marketplace, and there was another of these hanimals for sale. But perhaps I am making too bold, Sir?”
“No, no, not at all; go on. I like to hear you.”
“‘Well,’ said M’Clure to the countryman, ‘What do you call that?’
“‘A moose,’ said he.
“Well, I gives him a nudge of my helbow, to remind him not to tell him it was a ‘daumed lee,’ as he did the other man.
“‘What does moose mean, my man?’
“Would you believe it, Sir, he didn’t like that word ‘my man,’ partikelarly coming from a soldier, for they are so hignorant here they affect to look down upon soldiers, and call ’em ‘thirteen pences.’
“‘Mean,’ said he, ‘it means that,’ a-pointin’ to the carcass. ‘Do you want to buy it?’