"Nor, suh, you ain' got a ounce too much meat on you," said George, reassuringly; "how much you weigh, Marse Nat, last time you was on de stilyards?" he inquired with wily interest.
The Major faced him.
"George Washington, the last time I weighed I tipped the beam at one hundred and forty-three pounds, and I had the waist of a girl."
He laid his fat hands with the finger tips touching on his round sides about where the long since reversed curves of the lamented waist once were, and gazed at George with comical melancholy.
"Dat's so," assented the latter, with wonted acquiescence. "I 'members hit well, suh, dat wuz when me and you wuz down in Gloucester tryin' to git up spunk to co'te Miss Ailsy Mann. Dat's mo'n thirty years ago."
The Major reflected. "It cannot be thirty years!—thir—ty—years," he mused.
"Yes, suh, an' better, too. 'Twuz befo' we fit de duil wid Jedge Carrington. I know dat, 'cause dat's what we shoot him 'bout—'cause he co'te Miss Ailsy an' cut we out."
"Damn your memory! Thirty years! I could dance all night then—every night in the week—and now I can hardly mount my horse without getting the thumps."
George Washington, affected by his reminiscences, declared that he had heard one of the ladies saying, "just the other day," what "a fine portly gentleman" he was.
The Major brightened.