—­I say, Governor,—­broke in the young man John,—­them hosses’ll stay jest as well, if you’ll only set down.  I’ve had ’em this year, and they haven’t stirred.—­He spoke, and handed the chair towards me,—­seating himself, at the same time, on the end of the bed.

You have lived in this house some time?—­I said,—­with a note of interrogation at the end of the statement.

Do I look as if I’d lost much flesh?—­said he,—­answering my question by another.

No,—­said I;—­for that matter, I think you do credit to “the bountifully furnished table of the excellent lady who provides so liberally for the company that meets around her hospitable board.”

[The sentence in quotation-marks was from one of those disinterested editorials in small type, which I suspect to have been furnished by a friend of the landlady’s, and paid for as an advertisement.  This impartial testimony to the superior qualities of the establishment and its head attracted a number of applicants for admission, and a couple of new boarders made a brief appearance at the table.  One of them was of the class of people who grumble if they don’t get canvasbacks and woodcocks every day, for three-fifty per week.  The other was subject to somnambulism, or walking in the night, when he ought to have been asleep in his bed.  In this state he walked into several of the boarders’ chambers, his eyes wide open, as is usual with somnambulists, and, from some odd instinct or other, wishing to know what the hour was, got together a number of their watches, for the purpose of comparing them, as it would seem.  Among them was a repeater, belonging to our young Marylander.  He happened to wake up while the somnambulist was in his chamber, and, not knowing his infirmity, caught hold of him and gave him a dreadful shaking, after which he tied his hands and feet, and then went to sleep till morning, when he introduced him to a gentleman used to taking care of such cases of somnambulism.]

If you, my reader, will please to skip backward, over this parenthesis, you will come to our conversation,—­which it has interrupted.

It a’n’t the feed,—­said the young man John,—­it’s the old woman’s looks when a fellah lays it in too strong.  The feed’s well enough.  After geese have got tough, ‘n’ turkeys have got strong, ‘n’ lamb’s got old, ‘n’ veal’s pretty nigh beef, ‘n’ sparragrass’s growin’ tall ‘n’ slim ‘n’ scattery about the head, ‘n’ green peas gettin’ so big ‘n’ hard they’d be dangerous if you fired ’em out of a revolver, we get hold of all them delicacies of the season.  But it’s too much like feedin’ on live folks and devourin’ widdah’s substance, to lay yourself out in the eatin’ way, when a fellah’s as hungry as the chap that said a turkey was too much for one ‘n’ not enough for two.  I can’t help lookin’ at the old woman.  Corned-beef-days she’s tolerable calm.  Roastin’-days she worries some, ‘n’ keeps a sharp eye on the chap that carves.  But when there’s anything in the poultry line, it seems to hurt her feelin’s so to see the knife goin’ into the breast and joints comin’ to pieces, that there’s no comfort in eatin’.  When I cut up an old fowl and help the boarders, I always feel as if I ought to say, Won’t you have a slice of widdah?—­instead of chicken.