gether a citizen of this world nother. He fishes in deep water,
with a sinker to his hook. He can't throw a fly as I can, reel out his
line, run down stream, and then wind up, wind up, wind up, and let out,
and wind up again, till he lands his fish, as I do. He looks deep into
things, is a better religionist, polititioner, and bookster than I be:
but then that's all he does know. If you want to find your way about, or
read a man, come to me, that's all; for I'm the boy that jist can do
it. If I can't walk into a man, I can dodge round him; and if he is too
nimble for that, I can jump over him; and if he is too tall for that,
although I don't like the play, yet I can whip him.
"Now, Squire, I have been a good deal to England, and crossed this big
pond here the matter of seven times, and know a good deal about it, more
than a great many folks that have writtin' books on it, p'raps. Mind
what I tell you, the English ain't what they was. I'm not speakin' in
jeest now, or in prejudice. I hante a grain of prejudice in me. I've
see'd too much of the world for that I reckon. I call myself a candid
man, and I tell you the English are no more like what the English used
to be, when pigs were swine, and Turkey chewed tobacky, than they are
like the Picts or Scots, or Norman, French, or Saxons, or nothin'."
"Not what they used to be?" I said. "Pray, what do you mean?"
"I mean," said he, "jist what I say. They ain't the same people no
more. They are as proud, and overbearin', and concaited, and haughty
to foreigners as ever; but, then they ain't so manly, open-hearted, and
noble as they used to be, once upon a time. They have the Spy System
now, in full operation here; so jist take my advice, and mind your
potatoe-trap, or you will be in trouble afore you are ten days older,
see if you ain't."
"The Spy System!" I replied. "Good Heavens, Mr. Slick, how can you talk
such nonsense, and yet have the modesty to say you have no prejudice?"
"Yes, the Spy System," said he, "and I'll prove it. You know Dr.
Mc'Dougall to Nova Scotia; well, he knows all about mineralogy, and
geology, and astrology, and every thing a'most, except what he ought to
know, and that is dollar-ology. For he ain't over and above half well
off, that's a fact. Well, a critter of the name of Oatmeal, down to
Pictou, said to another Scotchman there one day, 'The great nateralist
Dr. Mc'Dougall is come to town.'
"'Who?' says Sawney.
"'Dr. Mc'Dougall, the nater
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