 his lips, first expressing the wish of here's
hoping, leaving it to the imagination of the hearers to fill the vacuum by
whatever good each thought most desirable. During these movements, the landlady
was busily occupied with mixing the various compounds required by her customers,
with her own hands, and occasionally exchanging greetings and inquiries
concerning the conditions of their respective families, with such of the
villagers as approached the bar.
    At length, the common thirst being in some measure assuaged, conversation of
a more general nature became the order of the hour. The physician, and his
companion, who was one of the two lawyers of the village, being considered the
best qualified to maintain a public discourse with credit, were the principal
speakers, though a remark was hazarded, now and then, by Mr. Doolittle, who was
thought to be their inferior, only in the enviable point of education. A general
silence was produced on all but the two speakers, by the following observation
from the practitioner of the law: -
    »So, Doctor Todd, I understand that you have been performing an important
operation, this evening, by cutting a charge of buck-shot from the shoulder of
the son of Leather-stocking?«
    »Yes, sir,« returned the other, elevating his little head, with an air of
importance. »I had a small job, up at the Judge's, in that way: it was, however,
but a trifle to what it might have been, had it gone through the body. The
shoulder is not a very vital part; and I think the young man will soon be well.
But I did not know that the patient was a son of Leather-stocking: it is news to
me, to hear that Natty had a wife.«
    »It is by no means a necessary consequence,« returned the other, winking,
with a shrewd look around the bar-room; »there is such a thing, I suppose you
know, in law, as a filius nullius.«
    »Spake it out, man,« exclaimed the landlady, »spake it out in king's
English; what for should ye be talking Indian, in a room full of Christian
folks, though it is about a poor hunter, who is but a little better in his ways
than the wild savages themselves? Och! it's to be hoped that the missionaries
will, in his own time, make a convarsion of the poor divils; and then it will
matter little of what colour is the skin, or wedder there
