"God be thanked!" I cried, dancing about as joyously as the dog; "I am now a respectable man, with my pockets full of money. Farewell, then, you poor miserable Sheppard Lee! you ragamuffin! you poor wretched shote! you half-starved old sand-field Jersey kill-deer! you vagabond! you beggar! you Dicky Dout, with the wrong place in your upper story! you are now a gentleman and a man of substance, and a happy dog into the bargain. Ha, ha, ha!" and here I fell a laughing out of pure joy; and giving my dog Ponto a buss, as if that were the most natural act in the world, and a customary way of showing my satisfaction, I began to stalk towards my old ruined house, without exactly knowing for what purpose, but having some vague idea about me, that I would set old Jim Jumble and his wife Dinah to shouting and dancing; an amusement I would willingly have seen the whole world engaged in at that moment. CHAPTER XVII. A NATURAL MISTAKE, WHICH, ALTHOUGH IT PROCURES THE AUTHOR A ROUGH RECEPTION AT HIS OWN HOUSE, HAS YET THE GOOD EFFECT TO TEACH HIM THE PROPRIETY OF ADAPTING HIS MANNERS TO HIS CONDITION. I had not walked twenty yards, before a woodcock that was feeding on the edge of the marsh started up from under my nose, when, clapping my gun to my shoulder, I let fly at him, and down he came. "Aha, Ponto!" said I, "when did I ever fail to bring down a woodcock? Bring it along, Ponto, you rascal.--Rum-te, ti, ti! rum-te, ti, ti!" and I went on my way singing for pure joy, without pausing to recharge, or to bag my game. I reached my old house, and began to roar out, without reflecting that I was now something more than Sheppard Lee, "Hillo! Jim Jumble, you old rascal! get up and let me in." "What you want, hah?" said old Jim, poking his head from the garret-window of the kitchen, and looking as sour as a persimmon before frost. "Guess Massa Squire Higginson drunk, hah? What you want? S'pose I'm gwyin to git up afo' sunrise for not'in', and for anybody but my Massa Sheppard?" "Why, you old dog," said I, in a passion, "I am your master Sheppard; that is, your master John Hazlewood Higginson, Esquire; for as for Sheppard Lee, the Jersey kill-deer, I've finished him, you rascal; you'll never see him more. So get down, and let me into the house, or I'll--" "You will, hah?" said Jim; "you will _what_?" "I'll shoot you, you insolent scoundrel!" I exclaimed, in a rage,--as if it were the most natural thing in the world for me to be in one; and as I spoke, I raised my piece; when "Bow--wow--wough!" went my old dog Bull, who had not bitten a man for two years, but who now rushed from his kennel under the porch, and seized me by the leg. "Get out, Bull, you rascal!" said I, but he only bit the harder; which threw me into such a fury that I clapped the muzzle of my gun to his side, and, having one charge remaining, blew him to pieces. "Golla-matty!" said old Jim, from the window, whence he had surveyed the combat; "golla-matty! shoot old Bull!"