putterings 249 < 250 > 251 index
without the slightest idea; rivening, ’riv
By this time Tom and I were laughing heartily at the notion of two men going out to shoot each other without the slightest idea of what they were quarreling about.
“You don’t mean to say, gentlemen,” said the doctor, “that you are both ignorant of the cause of the quarrel.”
“Ignorant as a baby,” said Gaston.
“You have hit it,” says Ryder. “Come, what’s the use of standing puttering here, let’s go ashore and settle it.”
Gaston was laughing so heartily, that I had to hold him....
—
ex “The Great Duel at Port Mahon,” in Graham’s Illustrated Magazine 51:3 (Philadelphia, September 1857) : 231-233 (232) : link (Indiana University copy)
same (but University of Iowa copy, via hathitrust) : link