“I meant it for laffin’,” said Cancut, humbly.
“Ef yer call that ’ere larfin’, couldn’t yer cry a little to kind er slick daown the bears?” said the trapper.
Iglesias now invited us to chocolat à la crème, made with the boon of the ex-barkeeper. I suppose I may say, without flattery, that this tipple was marvellous. What a pity Nature spoiled a cook by making the muddler of that chocolate a painter of grandeurs! When Fine Art is in a man’s nature, it must exude, as pitch leaks from a pine-tree. Our muskrat-hunters partook injudiciously of this unaccustomed dainty, and were visited with indescribable Nemesis. They had never been acclimated to chocolate, as had Iglesias and I, by sipping it under the shade of the mimosa and the palm.
Up to a certain point, an unlucky hunter is more likely to hunt than a lucky. Satiety follows more speedily upon success than despair upon failure. Let us thank Heaven for that, brethren dear! I had bagged not a bear, and must needs satisfy my assassin instincts upon something with hoofs and horns. The younger trapper of muskrat, being young, was ardent, — being young, was hopeful, — being young, believed in exceptions to general rules, — and being young, believed that, given a good fellow with a gun, Nature would provide a victim. Therefore he proposed that we should canoe it along the shallows in this sweetest and stillest of all the nights. The senior shook his head
