Ha! ha!
ha! I say, old fellow, when did you leave the ark?"
"And was Noah and his family well when you bid 'em good-by?" queried
another.
This levity and ridicule were too much for Colonel P. Desmit
to endure. He leaned out of the carriage window, and shaking his
gold-headed cane at the mirthful marauders denounced them in language
fearful in its impotent wrath.
"Take me to General Sherman, you rascals! I want to see the general!"
he yelled over and over again.
"The hell you do! Well, now, mister, don't you know that the General
is too nervous to see company to-day? He's just sent us on ahead
a bit to say to strangers that he's compelled to refuse all visitors
to-day. He gits that way sometimes, does 'Old Bill,' so ye mustn't
think hard of him, at all."
"Take me to the general, you plundering pirates!" vociferated the
enraged Colonel. "I'll see if a country gentleman travelling in his
own carriage along the highway is to be robbed and abused in this
manner!" "Robbed, did he say?" queried one, with the unmistakable
brogue of an Irishman. "Faith, it must be the gintleman has somethin'
very important along wid him in the carriage, that he's gittin' so
excited about; and its meself that'll not see the gintleman imposed
upon, sure." This with a wink at his comrades. Then to the occupant
of the carriage: "What did yer honor say might be yer name, now?
It's very partickler the General is about insthructin' us ter ax
the names of thim that's wantin' an' inthroduction to him, ye know?"
The solemnity of this address half deceived the irate Southron,
and he answered with dignity, "Desmit--Colonel Potestatem Desmit,
of Horsford County, sir.
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