It wasn't how I cared two buttons about it; but then the
feelin just came over me at the time," he answers, shaking his huge
sides, giving Graspum a significant wink, and laughing heartily.
"Never at a loss, I see!" returns the other, nodding his head,
pertinently: "If I didn't know ye, Blowers, that might go down
without sticking."
"Ye don't tell where ye raised that critter, eh?" he interrupts,
inquisitively, pointing his thumb over his right shoulder, and
crooking his finger, comically.
"Raised her with shiners-lots on 'em!" he rejoins, pushing Mr.
Pringle Blowers in the stomach, playfully, with his forefinger.
"Graspum! yer a wicked 'un."
"Suit ye, kind 'a-eh, Blowers?" he rejoins, enquiringly, maintaining
great gravity of manner as he watches each change of Blowers'
countenance.
Blowers laughs in reply. His laugh has something sardonic in it,
seeming more vicious as he opens his great wicked mouth, and
displays an ugly row of coloured teeth.
"Sit down, Blowers, sit down!" says Graspum, motioning his hand,
with a studied politeness. The two gentlemen take seats side by
side, on a wooden bench, stretched across the centre of the pen, for
negroes to sit upon. "As I live, Blowers, thar ain't another
individual like you in the county. You can whip a file of common
guardsmen, put the Mayor's court through a course of affronts,
frighten all the females out of the fashionable houses, treat a
regiment of volunteers, drink a bar-room dry-"
"Compliments thick, long and strong," interposes Blowers, winking
and wiping his mouth.
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