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Above the medium height, with an erect figure, in a close-fitting uniform buttoned to the chin; with a ruddy face, decorated with close-cut gray side-whiskers, mustache, and tuft on the chin; reserved in manner, brief of speech, without impulses of any description, it seemed, General Johnston's appearance and bearing were military to stiffness; and he was popularly compared to "a gamecock," ready for battle at any moment.
"So ho, my little gamecock, my little schooner with a swivel," said he who had called himself Jack Ball, "and where can this valiant butcher be found?" "He waits in the street," I answered more boldly. "Split me fore and aft if he waits long," said Jack, draining the rest of his rum.
"I trusts it to keep me goin' 'ale an' 'arty till I'm ninety, an' that's drawin' it mild, for my father lived till a 'underd, an' then on'y went through slippin' on a wet stone an' breakin' a bone in 'is back; an' my grandfather saw 'is larst Christmas at a 'underd an' ten, an' was up to kissin' a wench under the mistletoe, 'e was sich a chirpin' old gamecock.
Scrimgour or the Captain that took the fancy to my father's pigs; but it was this day, at any rate, that the Captain sent him the gamecock. Whichever one it was that fancied the litter of pigs, nothing would content him but to buy them, which he did at thirty shillings each, being the best bargain ever my father made. Nevertheless I'm thinking he was windier of the cock.
The pigling, as though aware that it might have outstayed its welcome, dashed out at the door, and the gamecock followed it at a more dignified pace. "If Miss Vera's dog sees that pig !" exclaimed the maid, and hurried off to avert such a catastrophe. A cold suspicion was stealing over Latimer's mind; he went to the window and drew up the blind.
He looked a gamecock as he stood there in the sunlight, his face all bathed in blood, and his shattered hand hanging numbed beside him.
The cock was a splendid bird. Picture to yourself a "black-breasted red" gamecock and you have him in all his glory except that his tail is drooping and he is more pheasant-like in his general bearing. The female was a trim little bird with a lilac sheen to her brown feathers and looked much like a well-kept game bantam hen.
He touched the cheap Panama, and swung theatrically round on his heel. Between him and the saloon-door there was a solid barricade of heavy Dutch bodies, in moleskin, tan-cord, and greasy homespun, topped by lowering Dutch faces. Brawny right hands that could have choked the reedy crow out of the little bantam gamecock, clenched in the baggy pockets of old shooting-jackets.
"That's what I say, sir," said the old sailor, leaning his arms on the bulwark, "just like a gamecock." "And assumes such an air of superiority," continued the middy. "Just like you do, sir, to'rds us common sailors," said the man, chuckling. "Don't you tell lies, Dick," said the lad sharply. "I always treat the sailors as an officer and a gentleman should."
"I haven't any patience." "That's true, my young gamecock!" exclaimed a somewhat discordant voice. Nellie looked round, brightening suddenly. A large slatternly woman stood in the back doorway, a woman who might possibly have been a pretty girl once but whose passing charms had long been utterly sponged out.
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