I buy one for fifty dollars and sell him for two hundred;
that's skill again--it ain't a cheat. A merchant, thinking a Russian
war inevitable, buys flour at four dollars a barrel, and sells it in a
month at sixteen. Is that a fraud? There is roguery in all trades but
our own. Let me alone therefore. There is wisdom sometimes in a fool's
answer; the learned are simple, the ignorant wise; hear them both;
above all, hear them out; and if they don't talk with a looseness,
draw them out. If Newman had talked as well as studied, he never would
have quitted his church. He didn't convince himself he was wrong; he
bothered himself, so he didn't at last know right from wrong. If other
folks had talked freely, they would have met him on the road, and told
him, 'You have lost your way, old boy; there is a river a-head of you,
and a very civil ferryman there; he will take you over free gratis for
nothing; but the deuce a bit will he bring you back, there is an
embargo that side of the water.' Now let me alone; I don't talk
nonsense for nothing, and when you tack this way and that way, and
beat the 'Black Hawk' up agen the wind, I won't tell you you don't
steer right on end on a bee line, and go as straight as a loon's leg.
Do you take?"
"I understand you," he said, "but still I don't see the use of saying
what you don't mean. Perhaps it's my ignorance or prejudice, or
whatever you choose to call it; but I dare say you know what you are
about.
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