so do we, too!--you're only cranky! a little
cranky, Frank, and given to defending any folly you commit without
either rhyme or reason--as when you tried to persuade me that it is the
safest thing in nature to pour gunpowder out of a canister into a pound
flask, with a lighted cigar between your teeth; to demonstrate which you
had scarcely screwed the top of the horn on, before the lighted ashes
fell all over it--had they done so a moment sooner, we should all have
been blown out of the room."

By this time, the Commodore had donned Harry's winter jacket, and Frank,
grumbling and paradoxizing all the while, had loaded his rifle, and
buttoned up his pea-jacket, when in stalked Tom, swathed up to his chin
in a stout dreadnought coat.

"What are ye lazin' here about!" he shouted, "you're niver ready no how.
Jem's been agone these two hours, and we'll jest be too late, and miss
gittin' a shot--if so be there be a buck--which I'll be sworn there
arn't!"

"Ha! ha!" the Commodore burst out; "ha! ha! ha! I should like to know
which side the laziness has been on this morning, Mister Draw."

"On little wax skin's there," answered the old man, as quick as
lightning; "the little snoopin' critter carn't find his gloves now;
though the nags is at the door, and we all ready. We'll drink, boys,
while he's lookin' arter 'em--and then when he's found them, and's jest
a gittin' on his horse, he'll find he's left his powder-horn or knife,
or somethin' else, behind him; and then we'll drink agin, while he
snoops back to fetch it."

"You be hanged, you old rascal," replied Forester, a little bothered by
the huge shouts of laughter which followed this most strictly accurate
account of his accustomed method of proceeding; an account which, by the
way, was fully justified not twenty minutes afterward, by his galloping
back, neck or nothing, to get his pocket handkerchief, which he had left
"in course," as Tom said, in his dressing-gown beside the fire.

"Come, bustle--bustle!" Harry added, as he put on his hunting cap and
pulled a huge pair of fen boots on, reaching to the midthigh, which
Timothy had garnished with a pair of bright English spurs. In another
minute they were all on horseback, trotting away at a brisk pace toward
the little glen, wherein, according to Jem's last report, the stag was
harbored. It was in vain that during their quick ride the old man was
entreated to inform them where they were to take post, or what they were