It was an
unlucky moment for the assertion of his manhood: for, a series of
circumstances operating just about that time unfavorably upon the mind
of his wife, she was in the worst possible humor upon which to try
experiments.
She heard the refusal of her liege to do the required duty, therefore,
with an astonishment, not unmingled with a degree of pleasure, as it
gave a full excuse for the venting forth upon him of those splenetic
humors, which, for some time, had been growing and gathering in her
system. The little sheriff, from long attendance on _courts_ and
_camps_, had acquired something more, perhaps, of the desire and
disposition, than the capacity, to make long speeches and longer
sermons, in the performance of both of which labors, however, he was
admirably fortified by the technicals of the law, and the Bible
phraseology. The quarrel had been waged for some time, and poor Tommy,
the bone of contention, sitting all the while between the contending
parties in a state of utter nudity, kept up a fine running accompaniment
to the full tones of the wranglers, by crying bitterly for his breeches.
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