“News, no! (Nate is as keen after news as after money, and that is saying all that can be said on the subject.) What news? Do tell me, Squire?”
“Well, I mean to tell you. You know John P.’s big dog, don’t you?”
“Yes. I hear him often enough nights to know him. What of it?”
“He’s been shot.”
“Good! First rate. But who shot him?”
“Old cheese, your brother-in-law up at the tavern there.”
“What, Hamble! You don’t say so!”
“But I do say so. And I say further, (but this you mustn’t repeat for the world, Nate, that is, with me as your authority—now you wont, will you?)”
“No, no, no, I tell you. What was you going to say further?”
“Why, I was going to say further, (and of course you wont repeat it as you’ve promised not,) that Claypole told me so.”