Well, in our country about Slickville, any man
arter that who was wise and had experience of life, was said to have
'gone through the mill.' Do you take?"
But he didn't answer.
"Well, your father and my good old friend brought us both up
religiously, and I hope taught us what was right. But, Mr Cutler--"
"Don't call me Mr," said he.
"Well, Cutler, then, I have been 'through the mill,' in that sense. I
have acquired a knowledge of the world; if I havn't, the kicks I have
taken must have fallen on barren ground. I know the chalk line in life
won't do always to travel by. If you go straight a-head, a bottomless
quag or a precipice will bring you up all standing as sure as fate.
Well, they don't stop me, for I give them the go-by, and make a level
line without a tunnel, or tubular bridge, or any other scientific
folly; I get to the end my own way--and it ain't a slow one neither.
Let me be, and put this in your pipe. I have set many a man straight
before now, but I never put one on the wrong road since I was raised.
I dare say you have heard I cheated in clocks--I never did. I have
sold a fellow one for five pounds that cost me one; skill did that.
Let him send to London, and get one of Barraud's, as father did, for
twenty-five pounds sterling. Will it keep better time? I guess not. Is
that a case of sell? Well, my knowledge of horse-flesh ain't to be
sneezed at.
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