He
used to delight to go marooning1 for a day or two in Maitland
settlement, where old soldiers are located, and measured every man he
met by the gauge of his purse. "Dat poor teevil," he would say, "is
wort twenty pounds, well, I am good for tree hundred, in gold and
silver, and provinch notes, and de mortgage on Burkit Crowse's farm
for twenty-five pounds ten shillings and eleven pence
halfpenny--fifteen times as much as he is, pesides ten pounds
interest." If he rode a horse, he calculated now many he could
purchase; and he found they would make an everlastin' cahoot.2 If he
sailed in a boat, he counted the flotilla he could buy; and at last he
used to think, "Vell now, if my vrow would go to de depot (graveyard)
vat is near to de church, Goten Himmel, mid my fortune I could marry
any pody I liked, who had shtock of cattle, shtock of clothes, and
shtock in de Bank, pesides farms and foresht lands, and dyke lands,
and meadow lands, and vind-mill and vater-mill; but dere is no chanse
she shall die, for I was dirty (thirty) when I married her, and she
was dirty-too (thirty-two). Tree hundred pounds! Vell, it's a great
shum; but vat shall I do mid it? If I leave him mid a lawyer, he say,
Mr Von Sheik, you gub it to me. If I put him into de pank, den de ting
shall break, and my forten go smash, squash--vot dey call von shilling
in de pound. If I lock him up, den soldier steal and desert away, and
conetry people shall hide him, and I will not find him no more.
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