HE PROMISED TOO MUCH.
"Then comes a Yankee Clockmaker" (and here Mr. Slick looked up and
smiled), "with his 'soft sawder,' and 'human natur',' and he sells
clocks warranted to run from July to Etarnity, stoppages included,
and I must say they do run as long as--as long as wooden clocks
commonly do, that's a fact. But I'll show you presently how I put the
leak into 'em, for here's a feller a little bit ahead on us, whose
flint I've made up my mind to fix this while past." Here we were
nearly thrown out of the wagon by the breaking down of one of those
small wooden bridges, which prove so annoying and so dangerous to
travellers. "Did you hear that 'ere snap?" said he; "well, as sure as
fate, I'll break my clocks over them 'ere etarnal log bridges, if Old
Clay clips over them arter that fashion. Them 'ere poles are plaguy
treacherous, they are jist like old Marm Patience Doesgood's teeth,
that keeps the great United Independent Democratic Hotel, at Squaw
Neck Creek, in Massachusetts--one half gone, and t'other half rotten
eends."
"I thought you had disposed of your last clock," said I, "at
Colchester, to Deacon Flint."
"So I did," he replied, "the last one I had to sell to HIM, but I got
a few left for other folks yet. Now there is a man on this road, one
Zeb Allen, a real genuINE skinflint, a proper close-fisted customer
as you'll a'most see anywhere, and one that's not altogether the
straight thing in his dealin' neither.
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