ee-quarters of
a dollar to take that 'ere lickin'! Wonder if I'm 'predestinated,' as
old Jed'diah says, to git the feller to it? Lord, how daddy blows! I do
wish to God he'd bust wide open, the durned old deer-face! If 'twa'n't
for Ben helpin' him, I b'lieve I'd give the old dog a tussel when it
comes to my turn. It couldn't make the thing no wuss, if it didn't make
it no better. 'Drot it! what do boys have daddies for anyhow? 'Tain't
for nuthin' but jist to beat 'em and work 'em. There's some use in
mammies. I kin poke my finger right in the old 'oman's eye, and keep it
thar; and if I say it ain't thar, she'll say so, too. I wish she was
here to hold daddy off. If 'twa'n't so fur I'd holler for her, anyhow.
How she would cling to the old fellow's coat-tail!"

Mr. Jedediah Suggs let down Bill and untied him. Approaching Simon,
whose coat was off, "Come, Simon, son," said he, "cross them hands; I'm
gwine to correct you."

"It ain't no use, daddy," said Simon.

"Why so, Simon?"

"Jist bekase it ain't. I'm gwine to play cards as long as I live. When I
go off to myself, I'm gwine to make my livin' by it. So what's the use
of beatin' me about it?"

Old Mr. Suggs groaned, as he was wont to do in the pulpit, at this
display of Simon's viciousness.

"Simon," said he, "you're a poor ignunt creetur. You don't know nothin',
and you've never been nowhars. If I was to turn you off, you'd starve in
a week."

"I wish you'd try me," said Simon, "and jist see. I'd win more money in
a week than you can make in a year. There ain't nobody round here kin
make seed corn off o' me at cards. I'm rale smart," he added with great
emphasis.

"Simon! Simon! you poor unlettered fool. Don't you know that all
card-players and chicken-fighters and horse-racers go to hell? You
crack-brained creetur, you! And don't you know that them that plays
cards always loses their money, and--"

"Who wins it all, then, daddy?" asked Simon.

"Shet your mouth, you imperdent, slack-jawed dog! Your daddy's a-tryin'
to give you some good advice, and you a-pickin' up his words that way. I
knowed a young man once, when I lived in Ogletharp, as went down to
Augusty and sold a hundred dollars' worth of cotton for his daddy, and
some o' them gambollers got him to drinkin', and the _very first_ night
he was with 'em they got every cent of his money."

"They couldn't get my money in a _week_," said Simon. "Anybody can git
these here green feller's money; them's