"Water won't touch him, I sees that," observed Smallbones.
"No. Mein Gott, dat was to trow time and de trouble away," replied the corporal.
"Hanging's just as natural a death for a cur," observed Spurey.
"I'm afeard that the rope's not laid that's to hang that animal," observed Coble, shaking his head. "If water won't do, I'm persuaded nothing will, for did not they use, in former days, to lay all spirits in the Red Sea?"
"But he ban't a spirit yet," replied Smallbones; "he be flesh and blood o' some sort. If I gets fairly rid of his body, d----n his soul, I say, he may keep that and welcome."
"But then, you know, he'll haunt us just as much as ever--we shall see him here just the same."
"A spirit is only a spirit," observed Smallbones; "he may live in the cabin all day and night afore I care; but, d'ye see, there's a great difference between the ghost of a dog, and the dog himself."
"Why, if the beast ar'n't natural, I can't see much odds," observed Spurey.
"But I can feel 'em," replied Smallbones. "This here dog has a-bitten me all to bits, but a ghost of a dog can't bite anyhow."
"And now, d'ye see, as Obadiah Coble has said as how spirits must be laid, I think if we were to come for to go for to lay this here hanimal in the cold hearth, he may perhaps not be able to get up again."
"Well, a perhaps is better than nothing at all," said the lad.
"That depends upon sarcumstances," observed Spurey. "What sort of a breakfast would you make upon a perhaps?"
"A good one, perhaps," replied Smallbones, grinning at the jingling of the words.
"Twenty dozen tyfels, Smallbones is in de right," observed Jansen, who had taken no part in the previous conversation. "Suppose you bury de dog, de dog body not get up again. Suppose he will come, his soul come, leave him body behind him."
"That's exactly my notion of the thing," observed Smallbones.
"Do you mean for to bury him alive?" inquired Spurey.
"Alive! Gott in himmel--no. I knock de brains out first, perry afterwards."
"And the dog can't have much left anyhow, dog or devil, when his brains are all out."
"Corporal and I," replied Smallbones; "we be agreed, ban't we, corporal?"
"And now I votes that we tries it off-hand; what's the use of shilly-shally? I made a mortal vow that that 'ere dog and I won't live together--there ban't room enough for us two."