If you will promise to
let me off this time, I will take my oath I will never save another
person from drowning again, the longest day I ever live.'
"'Come down,' said he, 'when I tell you, I am goin' to reward you.'
"'Thank you,' sais I, 'I have been rewarded already more than I
deserve.'
"Well, to make a long story short, we concluded a treaty of peace, and
down I went, and there was Colonel Snell, who said he had drove over
to beg my pardon for the wrong he had done to me, and said he, 'Sam,
come to me at ten o'clock on Monday, and I will put you in a way to
make your fortune, as a recompense for saving my child's life.'
"Well, I kept the appointment, tho' I was awful skared about old Rose
kissin of me again; and sais he, 'Sam, I want to show you my
establishment for making wooden clocks. One o' them can be
manufactured for two dollars, scale of prices then. Come to me for
three months, and I will teach you the trade, only you musn't carry it
on in Connecticut to undermine me.' I did so, and thus accidentally I
became a clockmaker.
"To sell my wares I came to Nova Scotia. By a similar accident I met
the Squire in this province, and made his acquaintance. I wrote a
journal of our tour, and for want of a title he put my name to it, and
called it 'Sam Slick, the Clockmaker.' That book introduced me to
General Jackson, and he appointed me attach? to our embassy to
England, and that again led to Mr Polk making me Commissioner of the
Fisheries, which, in its turn, was the means of my having the honour
of your acquaintance," and I made him a scrape of my hind leg.
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