The Humors of Falconbridge: A Collection of Humorous and Every Day ScenesFalconbridge
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The Humors of Falconbridge: A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes
Falconbridge
American wit and humor
Did you ever see a real, true, unadulterated specimen of _Down East_,
enter a store, or other place of every-day business, for the purpose of
"looking around," or _dicker_ a little? They are "coons," they are, upon
all such occasions. We noted one of these "critters" in the store of a
friend of ours, on Blackstone Street, recently. He was a full bloom
_Yankee_--it stuck out all over him. He sauntered into the store, as
unconcerned, quietly, and familiarly, as though in no great hurry about
anything in particular, and killing time, for his own amusement.
Absalom, Abijah, Ananias, Jedediah, or Jeremiah, or whatever else his
name may have been, wore a very large fur cap, upon a very small and
close-cut head; his features were mightily pinched up; there was a
cunning expression about the corner of his eyes, not unlike the
embodiment of--"catch a weazel asleep!" while the smallness of his
mouth, thinness and blue cast of his chin and lips, bespoke a keen,
calculating, pinch a four-pence until it squeaked like a frightened
locomotive temperament! His "boughten" sack coat, fitting him all over,
similar to a wet shirt on a broom-handle, was pouched out at the pockets
with any quantity of numerous articles, in the way of books and boots,
pamphlets and perfumery, knick-knacks and gim-cracks, calico, candy, &c.
His vest was short, but that deficiency was made up in superfluity of
_dickey_, and a profusion of sorrel whiskers. Having got into the store,
he very leisurely walked around, viewing the hardware, separately and
minutely, until one of the clerks edged up to him:
"What can we do for you to-day, sir?"
Looking _quarteringly_ at the clerk for about two full minutes, says
he--
"I'd dunno, just yet, mister, what yeou kin do."
"Those are nice hinges, real wrought," says the clerk, referring to an
article the "customer" had just been gazing at with evident interest.
"Rale wrought?" he asked, after another lapse of two minutes.
"They are, yes, sir," answered the clerk. Then followed another pause;
the Yankee with both his hands sunk deep into his trowsers' pockets, and
viewing the hinges at a respectful distance, in profound calculation,
three minutes full.
"They be, eh?" he at length responded.
"Yes, sir, _warranted_," replied the clerk. Another long pause. The
Yankee approached the hinges, two steps--picks up a bundle of the
article, looks knowingly at them two minutes--
"Yeou don't say so?"
"No doubt about that, at all," the clerk replies, rather pertly, as he
moves off to wait upon another customer, who bought some eight or ten
dollars' worth of cutlery and tools, paid for them, and cleared out,
while our Yankee genius was still reconnoitering the hinges.
"I say, mister, where's them made?" inquires the Yankee.
"In England, sir," replied the clerk.
"Not in _Neuw_ England, I'll bet a fo'pence!"
"No, not here--in Europe."
"I knowed they warn't made areound here, by a darn'd sight!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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