"Well, these Bluenoses have caught this disease, as folks do the
Scotch fiddle, by shakin' hands along with the British. Conceit has
become here, as Doctor Rush says (you have heerd tell of him? he's
the first man of the age, and it's generally allowed our doctors take
the shine off of all the world), acclimated; it is citizenized among
'em; and the only cure is a real good quiltin'. I met a first chop
Colchester gag this summer a-goin' to the races to Halifax, and he
knowed as much about racin', I do suppose, as a Choctaw Ingian does
of a railroad. Well, he was a-praisin' of his horse, and runnin'
on like statiee. He was begot, he said, by Roncesvalles, which was
better than any horse that ever was seen, because he was once in
a duke's stable in England. It was only a man that had blood like
a lord, said he, that knew what blood in a horse was. Captain
Currycomb, an officer at Halifax, had seen his horse and praised him;
and that was enough--that stamped him--that fixed his value. It was
like the President's name to a bank note, it makes it pass current.
'Well,' says I, 'I hain't got a drop of blood in me, nothin' stronger
than molasses and water, I vow, but I guess I know a horse when I see
him for all that, and I don't think any great shakes of your beast,
anyhow. What start will you give me,' says I, 'and I will run Old
Clay agin you, for a mile lick right an eend.
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