George for his part certainly was not, and said so plainly: "Look here, Major, do you see that?" (pointing to an old horse-shoe nailed over the fire-place.) "Right here was my grandfather's forge, and right about here's where he shod Gineral Washington's horse just awhile afore he fought the great battle of Trenton, and that's one of the cast-off shoes, and I wouldn't take a thousand dollars for it. Well, sir, the man that rode that horse that my grandfather shod, flaxed you Englishmen out of your boots; and I tell you we've plenty more that can do it now, and they'll do it again, if you Johnny Bulls don't behave yourselves; now mind." Dr. Wattletop, being in that condition when he was excessively patriotic, prejudiced, and punctilious, was so utterly dumbfounded by this tirade, that for a moment apoplexy was imminent. Luckily, contempt supervened, and with a smile of scorn and withering irony, he repeated, "Washington--Trenton--great battle of Trenton, I believe you said? Do you seriously call that a battle? Why, my man, do you know what a battle is? At the so-called battle of Trenton the total loss, according to your historians, and their statements are evidently grossly exaggerated--the total loss in killed on both sides amounted to five-and-twenty, including a drummer, who received a black eye in the shindy; five-and-twenty killed! all told--all told!" George Gildersleeve shook his head incredulously at this statement, and the doctor continued: "Now, if you will take the trouble to instruct yourself a bit, you will find out what Englishmen can do. Read, for instance, an account of the battle of Waterloo. Talk of Homeric heroes! What's Achilles and the well-greaved Greeks to the Iron Duke and the Guards?--what's Ajax Telamon to Shaw the Life-guardsman? tell me that--tell me that?" Shaw the Life-guardsman was the doctor's favorite hero, and he never failed, when the occasion offered, to bring him in as the compeer of all the paladins of old, from Hector to Roland. "Ah! there was fighting such as the world ne'er saw before," continued the doctor, kindling with enthusiasm. "Not the famous Macedonian phalanx nor the Roman legion held their ground so stoutly as the squares of British linesmen when the steel-clad squadrons of cuirassiers broke against them in vain." "That was all very well when you fought them Frenchmen and Greeks. But when you tackled us, you found a different sort of people to deal with, I reckon. Old Put, and Jackson, and Gineral Scott, were too much for you, old man," returned George, with a shake of the head that ought to have settled matters. Dr. Wattletop's nose glowed with a fiercer heat, and if looks could have scorched a man, Gildersleeve would have shrivelled on the spot; but the chances are that even the glances of that pleasant dame Medusa would have fallen harmless on the pachydermatous master of the Archimedes Works.