Chapter 20 - Page 2

Sitgreaves," echoed Betty,
showing her blooming countenance from a broken window of the kitchen,
"you are ever a-coming too late; here is nothing to ate but the skin of
Jenny, and the body ye're mentioning."

"Woman!" said the surgeon, in anger, "do you take me for a cannibal,
that you address your filthy discourse to me, in this manner? I bid you
hasten with such food as may be proper to be received into the
stomach fasting."

"And I'm sure it's for a popgun that I should be taking you sooner than
for a cannon ball," said Betty, winking at the captain; "and I tell ye
that it's fasting you must be, unless ye'll let me cook ye a steak from
the skin of Jenny. The boys have ate me up intirely."

Lawton now interfered to preserve the peace, and assured the surgeon
that he had already dispatched the proper persons in quest of food for
the party. A little mollified with this explanation, the operator soon
forgot his hunger, and declared his intention of proceeding to
business at once.

"And where is your subject?" asked Lawton.

"The peddler," said the other, glancing a look at the signpost. "I made
Hollister put a stage so high that the neck would not be dislocated by
the fall, and I intend making as handsome a skeleton of him as there is
in the states of North America; the fellow has good points, and his
bones are well knit. I will make a perfect beauty of him. I have long
been wanting something of this sort to send as a present to my old aunt
in Virginia, who was so kind to me when a boy."

"The devil!" cried Lawton. "Would you send the old woman a dead man's
bones?"

"Why not?" said the surgeon. "What nobler object is there in nature than
the figure of a man--and the skeleton may be called his elementary
parts. But what has been done with the body?"

"Off too."

"Off! And who has dared to interfere with my perquisites?"

"Sure, jist the divil," said Betty; "and who'll be taking yeerself away
some of these times too, without asking yeer lave."

"Silence, you witch!" said Lawton, with difficulty suppressing a laugh.
"Is this the manner in which to address an officer?"

"Who called me the filthy Elizabeth Flanagan?" cried the washerwoman,
snapping her fingers contemptuously. "I can remimber a frind for a year
and don't forgit an inimy for a month."

But the friendship or enmity of Mrs. Flanagan was alike indifferent to
the surgeon, who could think of nothing but his loss; and Lawton was
obliged to explain to his friend the apparent manner in which it
had