“‘Common people, Billy--low, common people, can’t make it out when nature raised a gentleman in the family--a gentleman all complete, only the money’s been forgot. If a man won’t work all the time--day in and day out--if he smokes by the fire, or whistles out of the winder, the very gals bump agin him, and say, “Git out of the way, loaf!” “‘But, Billy, my son, never mind, and keep not a lettin’ on,” continued Nollikens, and a beam of hope irradiated his otherwise Saturnine countenance; “the world’s a railroad, and the cars is comin’--all we’ll have to do is to jump in, chalked free. There will be a time--something must happen. Rich widders are about yet, though they are snapped up so fast. Rich widders, Billy, are “special providences,” as my old boss used to say when I broke my nose in the entry, sent here like rafts to pick up deservin’ chaps when they can’t swim no longer. When you’ve bin down twy’st, Billy, and are jist off agin, then comes the widder afloatin’ along. Why, splatter docks is nothin’ to it, and a widder is the best of all life-preservers, when a man is most a case, like you and me.’ “‘Wall, I’m not perticklar, not I, nor never was. I’ll take a widder, for my part, if she’s got the mint drops, and never ask no questions. I’m not proud--never was harrystocratic--I drinks with anybody, and smokes all the cigars they give me. What’s the use of bein’ stuck up, stiffy? It’s my principle that other folks are nearly as good as me, if they’re not constables nor aldermen. I can’t stand them sort.’ “‘No, Billy,’ said Nollikens, with an encouraging smile, ‘no, Billy, such indiwidooals as them don’t know human natur’--but, as I was agoin to say, if there happens to be a short crop of widders, why can’t somebody leave us a fortin?--that will do as well if not better. Now look here--what’s easier than this? I’m standin’ on the wharf--the rich man tries to go aboard of the steamboat--the niggers push him off the plank--in I jumps, ca-splash! The old gentleman isn’t drowned; but he might have been drowned but for me, and if he had a bin, where’s the use of his money then? So he gives me as much as I want now, and a great deal more when he defuncts riggler, accordin’ to law and the practice of civilized nations. You see--that’s the way the thing works. I’m at the wharf every day--can’t afford to lose a chance, and I begin to wish the old chap would hurry about comin’ along. What can keep him?’ “‘If it ’ud come to the same thing in the end,’ remarked Billy Bunkers, ‘I’d rather the niggers would push the old man’s little boy into the water, if it’s all the same to him. Them fat old fellers are so heavy when they’re skeered, and hang on so--why I might get drowned before I had time to go to the bank with the check! But what’s the use of waitin’? Couldn’t we shove ’em in some warm afternoon ourselves? Who’d know in the crowd?’