“‘Why,’ sais he, ‘I’ll tell you,’ and he looked cautiously all round, as if he didn’t want any one to know the secret. ‘I gave him a most an almighty hambler that fairly keeled him over.’
“‘What?’ said M’Clure.
“‘Why,’ sais he, ‘I gave him,’ and he bent forward towards his hear as if to whisper the word, ‘I gave him a most thunderin’ everlastin’ loud—’ and he gave a yell into his hear that was eard clean across the harbour, and at the ospital beyond the dockyard, and t’other way as far as Fresh-water Bridge. Nothin’ was hever eard like it before.
“M’Clure sprang backwards the matter of four or five feet, and placed his hand on his side arms, while the countryman brayed out a horse laugh that nearly took away one’s earing. The truck-men gate him a cheer, for they are all Irishmen, and they don’t like soldiers commonly on account of their making them keep the peace at ome at their meetin’ of monsters, and there was a general commotion in the market. We beat a retreat, and when we got out of the crowd, sais I, ‘M’Clure, that comes of arguing with every one you meet. It’s a bad habit.’
“‘I wasn’t arguing,’ sais he, quite short, ‘I was only asking questions, and how can you ever learn if you don’t inquire?’
“Well, when he got to the barrack, he got a book wrote by a Frenchman, called Buffoon.”
“A capital name,” sais I, “for a Frenchman,” but he didn’t take, for there is no more fun in an Englishman than a dough pudding, and went on without stopping.
“Sais he, ‘this author is all wrong. He calls it han ‘horiginal,’ but he ain’t a native animal, it’s half English and half Yankee. Some British cattle at a remote period have been wrecked here, strayed into the woods, and erded with the Carriboo. It has the ugly carcass and ide of the ox, and has taken the orns, short tail, and its speed from the deer. That accounts for its being larger than the native stags.’ I think he was right, Sir, what is your opinion?”
The doctor and the rest of the party coming up just put an end to Jackson’s dissertation on the origin of the moose. The former said,
“Come, Mr Slick, suppose we try the experiment of the bow,” and Jessie, seeing us preparing for shooting, asked the doctor for smaller ones for her sister and herself. The targets were accordingly prepared, and placing myself near one of them, I discharged the gun and removed a few paces on one side, and commenced as rapidly as I could to reload, but the doctor had sent three arrows through mine before I had finished. It required almost as little time as a revolver. He repeated the trial again with the same result.