'Why it ain't
possible!' said I; 'if that ain't Professor Everett, as I am alive!
Why, how do you do, Professor?' 'Pretty well, I give you thanks,' said
he; 'how be you? but I ain't no longer Professor; I gin that up, and
also the trade of preaching, and took to politics.' 'You don't say
so,' said I; 'why, what on airth is the cause o' that?' 'Why,' says
he, 'look here, Mr. Slick. What IS the use of reading the Proverbs of
Solomon to our free and enlightened citizens, that are every mite and
morsel as wise as he was? That 'ere man undertook to say there was
nothing new under the sun. I guess he'd think he spoke a little too
fast, if he was to see our steamboats, railroads, and India rubber
shoes--three inventions worth more nor all he knew put in a heap
together.' 'Well, I don't know,' said I, 'but somehow or another, I
guess you'd have found preaching the best speculation in the long
run; them 'ere Unitarians pay better than Uncle Sam.' (We call," said
the Clockmaker, "the American public Uncle Sam, as you call the
British John Bull.)
"That remark seemed to grig him a little; he felt oneasy like, and
walked twice across the room, fifty fathoms deep in thought; at last
he said, 'Which way are you from, Mr. Slick, this hitch?' 'Why,' says
I, 'I've run away up South a-speculating in nutmegs.' 'I hope,' says
the Professor, 'they were a good article, the real right down genuine
thing.
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