Advancing With An Alert Step, And Free And
Easy Air, He Threw The Buck On The Ground, And, Without Waiting
For An Invitation, Seated Himself At Their Mess, Helped Himself
Without Ceremony, And Chatted To The Right And Left In The
Liveliest And Most Unembarrassed Manner.
No adroit and veteran
dinner hunter of a metropolis could have acquitted himself more
knowingly.
The travellers were at first completely taken by
surprise, and could not but admire the facility with which this
ragged cosmopolite made himself at home among them. While they
stared he went on, making the most of the good cheer upon which
he had so fortunately alighted; and was soon elbow deep in "pot
luck," and greased from the tip of his nose to the back of his
ears.
As the company recovered from their surprise, they began to feel
annoyed at this intrusion. Their uninvited guest, unlike the
generality of his tribe, was somewhat dirty as well as ragged and
they had no relish for such a messmate. Heaping up, therefore, an
abundant portion of the "provant" upon a piece of bark, which
served for a dish, they invited him to confine himself thereto,
instead of foraging in the general mess.
He complied with the most accommodating spirit imaginable; and
went on eating and chatting, and laughing and smearing himself,
until his whole countenance shone with grease and good-humor. In
the course of his repast, his attention was caught by the figure
of the gastronome, who, as usual, was gorging himself in dogged
silence.
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