think we
are "peculiar,"--that Nature broke her jelly-mould after shaping our
cerebral convolutions. So I reflected, standing and looking at the
picture.

--I say, Governor,--broke in the young man John,--them bosses '11 stay
jest as well, if you'll only set down. I've had 'em this year, and they
haven't stirred.--He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,--seating
himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed.

You have lived in this house some time?--I said,--with a note of
interrogation at the end of the statement.

Do I look as if I'd lost much flesh--said he, answering my question by
another.

No,--said I;--for that matter, I think you do credit to "the bountifully
furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the
company that meets around her hospitable board."

[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested
editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by
a friend of the landlady's, and paid for as an advertisement. This
impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and
its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple
of new boarders made a brief appearance at the table. One of them was
of the class of people who grumble if they don't get canvas-backs and
woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week. The other was subject to
somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been
asleep in his bed. In this state he walked into several of the boarders'
chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and,
from some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got
together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them,
as it would seem. Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young
Marylander. He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his
chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him
a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and so left
him till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to taking
care of such cases of somnambulism.]

If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis,
you will come to our conversation, which it has interrupted.

It a'n't the feed,--said the young man John,--it's the old woman's looks
when a fellah lays it in too strong. The feed's well enough. After geese
have got tough, 'n' turkeys have got strong, 'n' lamb's got old, 'n'
veal