there was, 't
wouldn't hurt ye none. It's jest the kernel an' the shell mixed up
together.

_Eupeptos._--Dangerous combination. I have no military
ambition,--wouldn't give a rush for a spread eagle,--don't like the
braying by a mortar.

_Duespeptos._--Wal, I mout as wal vamose, 's long as I've hove in my
rations. Already gone risin' a good half-ounce above my or'nary
'lowance. 'T wun't do to dissipate, even ef a feller a'n't to hum an'
nobody's the wiser. Natur' allers makes ye foot the bill all the same on
sea an' shore.

_Eupeptos._ (Trolling in a low voice the celebrated barcarole,

"My bark is by the shore," etc.)--

Stay, oh, stay, gentle stranger! See yon sausage fatly floating! Be not
dogged to go, but come! Prithee, return once more to the festive board!
Lo! this--the fattest of the flock--shall be thy portion, most favored
Benjamin!

_Duespeptos._ (--Muttering in the distance.)--That feller's a raael
jo-fired numbskull. He don't know any more about the fust principles o'
human natur' than the babe unborn. Reg'lar goney. Dunno whether he's
jokin' or in sober airnest. Good mind to sail into him anyhow. Guess 't
'll do, though, to leave him to Natur'. He'll stuff himself to death
fast enough ... pitchin' into p'is'n ... sexton ... six-board box ...
coroner's verdick ... run over by a fry ... engineer did his dooty....

IX.--FINALE (_con motivo._)

But time would fail me to tell you of the myriad golden spangles so
thickly stitched into the hurrying web of those fustian hours. Oh! that
dim crepuscular time, when, with toe set to toe squarely on the scratch,
we stood up to one another, with eyes glaring through the gloaming, and
gave and took manfully, fighting out anew the old battles of the Bourbon
_vs._ China, of King James _vs._ Virginia, of Graham _vs._ Greece! I
could tell you of the siesta of the new Prometheus, when, perched on the
Mount Caucasus of a bleak chain-cable, he gave himself postprandially,
in full livery of seisin, to the vulturous sun. Wasted, yet daily
renewed, enduring, yet murmuring not, he hurled defiance at Fat, scoffed
at the vain rage of Jupiter Pinguis, and proffered to the world below a
new life in his fiery gift of stale bran-bread. Would you could have
heard that vesper hymn stealing hirsute through the mellow evening-air!
It sung the Peptic Saints and Martyrs, explored the bowels of old Time,
and at last died away in dulcet cadence as it chanted the glories of the
co