"Well, Jem," said Archer, "unbutton your bag now; what's the news?"

"Well, Mr. Aircher, it ben't no use to tell you on't, with Tom, there,
puttin' a body out, and swearin' it's a lie, and dammin' a chap up and
down. It ben't no use to tell you, and yet I'd kind o' like to, but then
you won't believe a fellow, not one on you!"

"In course not," answered Forester; and at the same instant Tom struck
in likewise--

"It's a lie, afore you tell it; it's a lie, cuss you, and you knows it.
I'd sooner take a nigger's word than yours, Jem, any how, for the darned
niggers will tell the truth when they can't git no good by lyin', but
you, you will lie all times! When the truth would do the best, and you
would tell it if you could, you can't help lyin'!"

"Shut up, you old thief; shut up instantly, and let the man speak, will
you; I can see by his face that he has got something to tell; and as for
lying, you beat him at it any day."

Tom was about to answer, when Harry, who had been eagerly engaged in
mixing a huge tumbler-full of strong cold shrub punch, thrust it under
his nose, and he, unable to resist the soft seductive odor, seized it
incontinently, and neither spoke nor breathed again until the bottom of
the rummer was brought parallel to the ceiling; then, with a deep
heart-felt sigh, he set it down; and, with a calm placid smile,
exclaimed, "Tell on, Jem." Whereupon that worthy launched into his full
tide of narrative, as follows:

"Well, you sees, Mr. Aircher, I tuk up this mornin' clean up the old
crick side, nigh to Vernon, and then I turned in back of old Squire
Vandergriff's, and druv the mountains clear down here till I reached
Rocky Hill; I'd pretty good sport, too, I tell you; I shot a big gray
fox on Round Top, and started a raal rouser of a red one down in the big
swamp, in the bottom, and them sluts did keep the darndest ragin' you
ever did hear tell on. Well, they tuk him clean out across the open,
past Andy Joneses, and they skeart up in his stubbles three bevies, I
guess, got into one like! there was a drove of them, I tell you, and
then they brought him back to the hills agin, and run him twice clean
round the Rocky Hill, and when they came round the last time, the
English sluts warn't half a rod from his tail no how, and so he tried
his last chance, and he holed; but my! now, Mr. Aircher, by darn, you
niver did see nothin' like the partridges; they kept a brushin' up and
brushin' up, and treein' eve