"Not much," answered Bagby from the group about the large table, not one of whom had missed a word of the foregoing conversation. "'T is shaved beef,"--a joke which called forth not a little laughter from his companions. "Will it buy a razor?" asked Fownes, quickly, turning to the lawyer with a smile. "Keep it a week and 't will shave you itself," retorted the joker, and this allusion to the steady depreciation of the colony paper money called forth another laugh. "Then 't is not blunt?" responded Charles, but no one save the traveller at the small table caught the play on words, the Cockney cant term for money being unfamiliar to American ears. He smiled, and then studied the bond-servant with more interest than he had hitherto shown. Meanwhile, at the first mention of razor, the Jew had left the room, and he now returned, carrying a great pack, which he placed upon the table. "Sir," he said, in an accent which proved his appearance did not belie his race, while beginning to unstrap the bundle, "I haf von be-utiful razor, uf der besd--" but here his speech was interrupted by a roar of laughter. "You've a sharper to deal with now," laughed the joker, and another called, "Now ye'll need no razor ter be shaved." "Chentlemen, chentlemen," protested the peddler, "haf n't I always dealt fair mit you?" He fumbled in his half-opened pack, and shoving three razors out of sight, he produced a fourth, which he held out to the servant. "Dot iss only dree shillings, und it iss der besd of steel." "You can trust Opper to know pretty much everything 'bout steals," sneered Bagby, who was clearly the local wit. "It 's been his business for twenty years." "I want a sharp razor, not a razor sharp," said Charles, good-naturedly, while taking the instrument and trying its edge with his finger. "What business hez a bond-servant tew spend money fer a razor?" demanded the tavern-keeper, for nothing then so marked the distinction between the well-bred and the unbred as the smooth faces of the one and the hairy faces of the other. "Hasn't he a throat to cut?" demanded one of the group, "an' hasn't a covenant man reason to cut it?" "More likes he's goin' a sparkin'," suggested one of the idlers. "The gal up ter the squire's holds herself pooty high an' mighty, but like as not she's as plaguey fond of bundling with a good-looking man on the sly as most wenches." "If she 's set on that, I'm her man," remarked Bagby. "Bundling?" questioned the covenant servant. "What 's that?" The question only produced a roar of laughter at his ignorance, during which the traveller turned to the publican and asked:-- "Who is this hind?" "'T is a new bond-servant o' Squire Meredith's, who I hearn is no smouch on horses. Folks think he's a bloody-back who 's took French leave."