Well, before the chills and
faver bruk me spirits entirely, when I was a young man, and makin'
me tin dollars a week brick-makin', it's meself that wud hav'
given--"
"I consider," I broke in, "that a dollar is a fair price for your
story, and as I shall have to take it all back and expose you
before the next twenty-four hours pass, I think you had better
hasten to Milwaukee, New York, or Louisiana."
I handed him the dollar. "Mind, I don't want to see your face
again."
"Ye wun't, captain."
And I did not.
But it so chanced that later in the season, when the migratory
inhabitants had flown to their hot-air registers in Boston and
Providence, I breakfasted with one who had lingered. It was a
certain Boston lawyer,--replete with principle, honesty, self-
discipline, statistics, aesthetics, and a perfect consciousness of
possessing all these virtues, and a full recognition of their
market values. I think he tolerated me as a kind of foreigner,
gently but firmly waiving all argument on any topic, frequently
distrusting my facts, generally my deductions, and always my ideas.
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