“‘Once I commits the error of my career by joustin’ with my brother Jeff.  This yere Jeff is settin’ on the bank of the Branch fishin’ for bullpouts at the time, an’ Jeff don’t know I’m hoverin’ near at all.  Jeff’s reedic’lous fond of fishin’; which he’d sooner fish than read Paradise Lost.  I’m romancin’ along, sim’larly bent, when I notes Jeff perched on the bank.  To my boyish imagination Jeff at once turns to be a Paynim.  I drops my bait box, couches my fishpole, an’ emittin’ a impromptoo warcry, charges him.  It’s the work of a moment; Jeff’s onhossed an’ falls into the Branch.

“’But thar’s bitterness to follow vict’ry.  Jeff emerges like Diana from the bath an’ frales the wamus off me with a club.  Talk of puttin’ a crimp in folks!  Gents when Jeff’s wrath is assuaged I’m all on one side like the leanin’ tower of Pisa.  Jeff actooally confers a skew-gee to my spinal column.

“’A week later my folks takes me to a doctor.  That practitioner puts on his specs an’ looks me over with jealous care.

“’"Whatever’s wrong with him, Doc?” says my father.

“’"Nothin’,” says the physician, “only your son Willyum’s five inches out o’ plumb.”

“‘Then he rigs a contraption made up of guy-ropes an’ stay-laths, an’ I has to wear it; an’ mebby in three or four weeks he’s got me warped back into the perpendic’lar.’

“’But how about this cat hunt?” asks Dan Boggs.  ’Which I don’t aim to be introosive none, but I’m camped yere through the second drink waitin’ for it, an’ these procrastinations is makin’ me kind o’ batty.’

“‘That panther hunt is like this,’ says the Colonel turnin’ to Dan.  ‘At the age of seventeen, me an’ eight or nine of my intimate brave comrades founds what we-all denom’nates as the “Chevy Chase Huntin’ Club.”  Each of us maintains a passel of odds an’ ends of dogs, an’ at stated intervals we convenes on hosses, an’ with these fourscore curs at our tails goes yellin’ an’ skally-hootin’ up an’ down the countryside allowin’ we’re shore a band of Nimrods.

“‘The Chevy Chasers ain’t been in bein’ as a institootion over long when chance opens a gate to ser’ous work.  The deep snows in the Eastern mountains it looks like has done drove a panther into our neighbourhood.  You could hear of him on all sides.  Folks glimpses him now an’ then.  They allows he’s about the size of a yearlin’ calf; an’ the way he pulls down sech feeble people as sheep or lays desolate some he’pless henroost don’t bother him a bit.  This panther spreads a horror over the county.  Dances, pra’er meetin’s, an’ even poker parties is broken up, an’ the social life of that region begins to bog down.  Even a weddin’ suffers; the bridesmaids stayin’ away lest this ferocious monster should show up in the road an’ chaw one of ’em while she’s en route for the scene of trouble.  That’s gospel trooth! the pore deserted bride has to heel an’ handle herse’f an’ never a friend to yoonite her sobs with hers doorin’ that weddin’ ordeal.  The old ladies present shakes their heads a heap solemn.