a strong inclination to knock him down for his insolence —­your friends!  Ensigns and leftenants, I guess, from the British marchin regiments in the Colonies, that run over five thousand miles of country in five weeks, on leave of absence, and then return, lookin as wise as the monkey that had seen the world.  When they get back they are so chock full of knowledge of the Yankees, that it runs over of itself, like a Hogshead of molasses rolled about in hot weather—­a white froth and scum bubbles out of the bung; wishy washy trash they call tours, sketches, travels, letters, and what not; vapid stuff, jist sweet enough to catch flies, cockroaches, and half fledged galls.  It puts me in mind of my French.  I larnt French at night school one winter, of our minister, Joshua Hopewell (he was the most larned man of the age, for he taught himself een amost every language in Europe); well, next spring, when I went to Boston, I met a Frenchman, and I began to jabber away French to him:  ’Polly woes a french say,’ says I. I don’t understand Yankee yet, says he.  You dont understand! says I, why its French.  I guess you didn’t expect to hear such good French, did you, away down east here? but we speak it real well, and its generally allowed we speak English, too, better than the British.  Oh, says he, you one very droll Yankee, dat very good joke, Sare; you talk Indian and call it French.  But, says I, Mister Mount shear; it is French, I vow; real merchantable, without wainy edge or shakes—­all clear stuff; it will pass survey in any market—­its ready stuck and seasoned.  Oh, very like, says he, bowin as polite as a black waiter at New OrLEENS, very like, only I never heerd it afore; oh, very good French dat—­clear stuff, no doubt, but I no understand—­its all my fault, I dare say, Sare.

Thinks I to myself a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse, I see how the cat jumps—­Minister knows so many languages he hant been particular enough to keep ’em in separate parcels and mark ’em on the back, and they’ve got mixed, and sure enough I found my French was so overrun with other sorts, that it was better to loose the whole crop than to go to weedin, for as fast as I pulled up any strange seedlin, it would grow right up agin as quick as wink, if there was the least bit of root in the world left in the ground, so I left it all rot on the field.  There is no way so good to larn French as to live among ’em, and if you want to understand us, you must live among us, too; your Halls, Hamiltons, and De Rouses, and such critters, what can they know of us?  Can a chap catch a likeness flying along a rail road? can he even see the feature?  Old Admiral Anson once axed one of our folks afore our glorious Revolution, (if the British had a known us a little grain better at that time, they would’nt have got whipped like a sack as they did then) where he came from.  From the Chesapeeke, said he.