"My plans are worth a fortune to those who follow the business," he
says, giving his glass a twirl as he sets it upon the table, and
commences--
"Born 'cute, you see; trade comes natural. Afore a free 'un don't
know it, I has him bonded and tucked off for eight or nine hundred
dollars, slap-up, cash and all. And then, ye sees, it's worth
somethin' in knowin' who to sell such criturs too-so that the brute
don't git a chance to talk about it without getting his back
troubled. And then, it requires as much knowin' as a senator's got
just to fix things as smooth so nobody won't know it; and just like
ye can jingle the coin in yer pocket, for the nigger, what
everybody's wonderin' where he can be gone to. I tell ye what, it
takes some stameny to keep the price of a prime feller in your
pocket, and wonder along with the rest where the rascal can be. If
you'd just see Bob Osmand doe it up, you'd think his face was made
for a methodist deacon in camp meeting-time. The way he comes it
when he wants to prove a free nigger's a runaway, would beat all the
disciples of Blackstone between here and old Kentuck. And then,
Bob's any sort of a gentleman, what you don't get in town every day,
and wouldn't make a bad senator, if he'd bin in Congress when the
compromise was settled upon,--'cos he can reason right into just
nothin' at all. Ye see it ain't the feelings that makes a feller a
gentleman in our business, it's knowing the human natur o' things;
how to be a statesman, when ye meets the like, how to be a
gentleman, and talk polite things, and sich like; how to be a jolly
fellow, an' put the tall sayings into the things of life; and when
ye gets among the lawyers, to know all about the pintes of the law,
and how to cut off the corners, so they'll think ye're bin a parish
judge. And then, when ye comes before the squire, just to talk
dignity to him-tell him where the law is what he don't seem to
comprehend. You've got to make a right good feller of the squire by
sticking a fee under his vest-pocket when he don't obsarve it. And
then, ye know, when ye make the squire a right good feller, you must
keep him to the point; and when there's any swarin' to be done, he's
just as easily satisfied as the law. It's all business, you see; and
thar's just the same kind a thing in it; because profit rules
principle, and puts a right smart chance o' business into their
hands without troubling their consciences. But then, Bob ain't got
the cunnin' in him like I-nor he can't "rope-in on the sly,"-knock
down and drag out, and just tell a whole possee to come on, as I do.
And that's what ye don't seem to come at, Graspum," said Romescos,
again filling his glass, and drawing a long black pipe from his
pocket prepares it for a smoke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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