“Yes, thank Heaven! But for all of you-----”
“Listen, please. All I want to say is that what Ted missed I got. Do you
understand?”
“Do _I_ understand! Are _you_ in your sane and sober senses, William?”
“I have a shrewd suspicion that I am,” I replied, with a slight laugh,
“and being so, I will repeat it: Baby didn't down the poison; but I
guess I made up for that, because _I did!_”
Then I told her the story.
Of course I gained my point. It ended with---- but, no matter. The Judge
stood the supper in consideration of quail on toast being incorporated
in the menu, and we sat around the festive board in the Queen's Arms
a week later, and talked over our Xmas Eve hunting match. No one was
disposed to question the sentiment in a speech by the Doc, who declared:
“Fellows, our prowess as a gun club is growing, and I verily believe
the old district is getting to be once more something like a half-decent
hunting ground. Let us keep together, be as men and brothers always,
and--I was nearly overlooking it--let us invariably wash out our pocket
pistols before filling 'em up afresh.”