The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1.: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage ManuscriptsCooper, James Fenimore
History
The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1.: Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts
Cooper, James Fenimore
Indians of North America -- Fiction; New York (State) -- History -- Colonial period, ca. 1600-1775 -- Fiction
"I understand you--six dollars, hey! That sounds high for such a looking
watch"--he had just before mistaken it for gold--"but I'm always the
poor man's friend, and despise aristocracy"--what Seneca hated with the
strongest hate, he ever fancied he _despised_ the most, and by
aristocracy he merely understood gentlemen and ladies, in the true
signification of the words--"why, I'm always ready to help along the
honest citizen. If you could make up your mind, now, to part with this
one watch for nawthin', I think I could tell you a part of the country
where you might sell the other nineteen in a week."
"Goot!" exclaimed my uncle, cheerfully. "Take him--he ist your broberty,
and wilcome. Only show me de town where I canst sell de nineteen
udders."
Had my uncle Ro been a true son of peddling, he would have charged a
dollar extra on each of the nineteen, and made eleven dollars by his
present liberality.
"It is no town at all--only a township," returned the literal Seneca.
"Did you expect it would be a city?"
"Vat cares I? I woult radder sell my vatches to goot, honest, country
men, dan asht to de best burghers in de land."
"You're my man! The right spirit is in you. I hope you're no patroon--no
aristocrat?"
"I don't know vat isht badroon, or vat isht arishtocrat."
"No! You are a happy man in your ignorance. A patroon is a nobleman who
owns another man's land; and an aristocrat is a body that thinks himself
better than his neighbours, friend."
"Well, den, I isht no badroon, for I don't own no land at all, not even
mine own; and I ishn't petter asht no poty at all."
"Yes, you be; you've only to think so, and you'll be the greatest
gentleman of 'em all."
"Well, den, I will dry and dink so, and be petter asht de greatest
shentlemans of dem all. But dat won't do, nudder, as dat vilt make me
petter dan you; for you are one of de greatest of dem all, shentlemans."
"Oh! as for me, let me alone. I scorn being on their level. I go for
'Down with the rent!' and so'll you, too, afore you've been a week in
our part of the country."
"Vat isht de rent dat you vants to git down?"
"It's a thing that's opposed to the spirit of the institutions, as you
can see by my feelin's at this very moment. But no matter! I'll keep the
watch, if you say so, and show you the way into that part of the
country, as your pay."
"Agreet, shentlemans. Vat I vants is atfice, and vat you vants is a
vatch."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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