[1] It is an old superstition that to put on one's clothes wrong
side out forebodes good luck.
He took his seat at the breakfast table, full of these
speculations, asked his daughter to put a lump of gold into his
tea, and on handing his wife a plate of slapjacks, begged her to
help herself to a doubloon.
His grand care now was how to secure this immense treasure without
its being known. Instead of his working regularly in his grounds
in the daytime, he now stole from his bed at night, and with spade
and pickax went to work to rip up and dig about his paternal acres,
from one end to the other. In a little time the whole garden,
which had presented such a goodly and regular appearance, with its
phalanx of cabbages, like a vegetable army in battle array, was
reduced to a scene of devastation, while the relentless Wolfert,
with nightcap on head and lantern and spade in hand, stalked
through the slaughtered ranks, the destroying angel of his own
vegetable world.
Every morning bore testimony to the ravages of the preceding night
in cabbages of all ages and conditions, from the tender sprout to
the full-grown head, piteously rooted from their quiet beds like
worthless weeds, and left to wither in the sunshine.
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