'
After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr Hannibal Chollop sat smoking and
improving the circle, without making any attempts either to converse or
to take leave; apparently labouring under the not uncommon delusion
that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert
another man's house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was
a delicate attention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody
could ever tire. At last he rose.
'I am a-going easy,' he observed.
Mark entreated him to take particular care of himself.
'Afore I go,' he said sternly, 'I have got a leetle word to say to you.
You are darnation 'cute, you are.'
Mark thanked him for the compliment.
'But you are much too 'cute to last. I can't con-ceive of any spotted
Painter in the bush, as ever was so riddled through and through as you
will be, I bet.'
'What for?' asked Mark.
'We must be cracked up, sir,' retorted Chollop, in a tone of menace.
'You are not now in A despotic land. We are a model to the airth, and
must be jist cracked-up, I tell you.'
'What! I speak too free, do I?' cried Mark.
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