Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/19

 of a handsome bird gun, who rested upon a pair of deer's antlers a short distance away.

"You can't bring a squirrel out of the top of the tallest hickory in the woods, or stop a woodcock or a grouse on the wing, but I can," continued the double-barrel.

"I can catch a trout, if I have some one to back me who understands his business, and that's more than you can do," retorted the bamboo, spitefully. "I can throw a line sixty or seventy feet; I heard the proprietor of this store say so."

"And I can throw shot sixty or seventy yards, which is three times as far as you can throw a line," shouted the double-barrel. "You seem to think yourself of some consequence because you came from New York. I came all the way from England, and that is on the other side of the ocean."

"So you are an assisted immigrant, are you?" cried the bamboo, in tones indicative of the greatest contempt. "Well, that's all I care to know about you."

The disputants grew more and more in earnest the longer they talked, and pretty soon