gin all over Europe--has he said one word of that
reception? Answer me that, will you? Darned the word, his memory was
bad; he lost it over the tafrail when he was sea-sick. But his notebook
was safe under lock and key, and the pigs in New York, and the chap the
rats eat in jail, and the rough man from Kentucky, and the entire raft
of galls emprisoned in one night, and the spittin' boxes and all that
stuff, warn't trusted to memory, it was noted down, and printed.

"But it tante no matter. Let any man give me any sarce in England, about
my country, or not give me the right _po_-sition in society, as Attache
to our Legation, and, as Cooper says, I'll become belligerent, too, I
will, I snore. I can snuff a candle with a pistol as fast as you can
light it; hang up an orange, and I'll first peel it with ball and
then quarter it. Heavens! I'll let daylight dawn through some o' their
jackets, I know.

"Jube, you infarnal black scoundrel, you odoriferous nigger you, what's
that you've got there?"

"An apple, massa."

"Take off your cap and put that apple on your head, then stand sideways
by that port-hole, and hold steady, or you might stand a smart chance to
have your wool carded, that's all."

Then taking a pistol out of the side-pocket of his mackintosh, he
deliberately walked over to the other side of the deck, and examined his
priming.

"Good heavens, Mr. Slick!" said I in great alarm, "what are you about?"

"I am goin'," he said with the greatest coolness, but at the same time
with equal sternness, "to bore a hole through that apple, Sir."

"For shame! Sir," I said. "How can you think of such a thing? Suppose
you were to miss your shot, and kill that unfortunate boy?"

"I won't suppose no such thing, Sir. I can't miss it. I couldn't miss
it if I was to try. Hold your head steady, Jube--and if I did, it's no
great matter. The onsarcumcised Amalikite ain't worth over three hundred
dollars at the furthest, that's a fact; and the way he'd pyson a shark
ain't no matter. Are you ready, Jube?"

"Yes, massa."

"You shall do no such thing, Sir," I said, seizing his arm with both my
hands. "If you attempt to shoot at that apple, I shall hold no further
intercourse with you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Sir."

"Ky! massa," said Jube, "let him fire, Sar; he no hurt Jube; he no
foozle de hair. I isn't one mossel afeerd. He often do it, jist to keep
him hand in, Sar. Massa most a grand shot, Sar. He take off de e