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In spite of the vicious pang of the grenades, there was an absurd "Boys-will-be-boys" air to the whole performance. Conversation, however, did not sink to this boyish level, and the rag-tag and bob-tail of one's cultivation found its outlet in speech.
I was pleased when morning came, and I heard the comparatively cheering tinkle from bells on the team of mules drawing the little "bob-tail" street-car past the hotel. On the following evening Bainbridge came to my room as he had promised, arriving at about eight o'clock. I had not that day accompanied him on his visit to Peters, who it seems was daily gaining strength.
"I say, I am." "You lie, pug-face: ha! I called you pug-face, tell now if you dare." "Well boys, down with your pins in the book: who's king?" "I am, sir." "Who's queen?" "Me, sir." "Who's prince?" "I am prince, sir." "Tag rag and bob-tail, fall into your places." "I've no pin, sir." "Well down with you to the tail now, boys."*
I bet my money on the bob-tail nag, Somebody bet on the bay! He never in his life had experienced anything so utterly frightful or imagined that anything could be so utterly frightful. His throat felt bursting. His eyes were filled. They were swinging past him, file by file. Doo-da! Doo-da! Day! He scarcely could see them. They were marching at ease, their rifles slung.
"I don't much like that young man," said his lordship to his toady, who followed him up and down the quarter-deck, like "the bob-tail cur," looking his master in the face. I did not hear the answer, but of course it was an echo. The first time we reefed topsails at sea, the captain was on deck; he said nothing, but merely looked on.
Thinking vaguely thus, the girl once down the hill caught hold of Ragamuffin and spun him along the valley between the hills till she came to the coastguard station, straggling like a flock of sheep across the Gap. At the mouth of the Gap was a familiar post. She slipped Ragamuffin's rein over it, and ran down the steep, uneven way through the chalk cliff, her bob-tail baying at her side.
Hope was in such a state of transparent admiration, that Albinia could not help two or three times noiselessly clapping her hands under the table, and secretly thanking the rioters and their tag-rag and bob-tail for having provided a home for little Genevieve Durant.
Farmer Derwent and his four stout sons set off on an autumn night for the meeting of patriots at a house on the Wissahickon, a meeting that bodes no good to the British encamped in Philadelphia, let the red-coats laugh as they will at the rag-tag and bob-tail that are joining the army of Mr. Washington in the wilds of the Skippack.
It was really Bobs' welcome, I think, across the cold prairie air, that took the tragedy out of my homecoming. There were gladness and trust in those deep-throated howls of greetings. He even licked the snow off my overshoes and nested his head between my knees, with his bob-tail thumping the floor like a flicker's beak. He sniffed at the Twins rather disgustedly.
Let me think for this whole year that PERHAPS you will marry a country editor, and that we shall spend the rest of our lives together, writing and planning, and tramping through the woods, and picnicking with the kiddies on the river, and giving Christmas parties for every little rag-tag and bob-tail in Old Paloma!"
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