something just to take off the edge, I shall not be able to
eat when it does come!"

"I'll make a pitcher of egg nog; A--- drinks egg nog, I guess, although
he's the poorest drinkin' man I ever did see. Now, Brower, look alive--
the fire's lit, is it? Well, then, jump now and feed them poor starvin'
bags-a-bones, as Archer calls dogs, and tell your mother to git supper.
Have you brought anything along to eat or drink, boys--I guess we
haven't nothin' in the house!"

"Oh! you be hanged," said Harry, "I've brought a round of cold spiced
beef, but I'm not going to cut that up for supper; we shall want it to
take along for luncheon--you must get something! Oh! by the way, you may
let the girls pick half a dozen quail, and broil them, if you choose!"

"Quail! do you say? and where'll I git quail, I'd be pleased to know?"

"Out of that gamebag," answered Harry, deliberately, pointing to the
well filled plump net which Timothy had just brought in and hung up on
the pegs beside the box-coats. Without a word or syllable the old chap
rushed to the wall, seized it, and scarcely pausing to sweep out of the
way a large file of "The Spirit," and several numbers of "The Register,"
emptied it on the table.

"Where the plague, Archer, did you kill them?" he asked, "you didn't
kill all them to-day, I guess! One, two, three--why, there's
twenty-seven cock, and forty-nine quail! By gin! here's another; just
fifty quail, three partridge, and six rabbits; well that's a most
all-fired nice mess, I swon; if you killed them today you done right
well, I tell you--you won't get no such mess of birds here now--but you
was two days killing these, I guess!"

"Not we, Tom! Frank and I drove up from York last night, and slept at
young Tom's, down the valley--we were out just as soon as it was light,
and got the quail, all except fifteen or sixteen, the ruffed grouse and
four hares, before twelve o'clock. At twelve the Commodore came up from
Nyack, where he left his yacht, and joined us; we got some luncheon,
went out again at one, and between that and five bagged all the cock,
the balance, as you would call it, of the quail, and the other two
bunnies."

"Well, then, you made good work of it, I tell you, and you won't do
nothin' like that agin this winter--not in Warwick; but I won't touch
them quail--it's a sin to break that bunch--but you don't never care to
take the rabbits home, and the old woman's got some beautiful fresh
onions--she'll m