not exactly understand the case,"
answered Seneca, who was a good deal disconcerted, but was bent on
maintaining his point. "I have understood you to say that you are a man
of liberal principles, Mr. Dafidson, and that you've come to America to
enjoy the light of intelligence and the benefits of a free government."

"Ja; ven I might coome to America, I say, vell, dat 'tis a goot coontry,
vhere an honest man might haf vhat he 'arns, ant keep it, too. Ja, ja!
dat ist vhat I say, ant vhat I dinks."

"I understand you, sir; you come from a part of the world where the
nobles eat up the fat of the land, taking the poor man's share as well
as his own, to live in a country where the law is, or soon will be, so
equal that no citizen will dare to talk about his _estates_, and hurt
the feelin's of such as haven't got any."

My uncle so well affected an innocent perplexity at the drift of this
remark as to make me smile, in spite of an effort to conceal it. Mary
Warren saw that smile, and another glance of intelligence was exchanged
between us; though the young lady immediately withdrew her look, a
little consciously and with a slight blush.

"I say that you like equal laws and equal privileges, friend Dafidson,"
continued Seneca, with emphasis; "and that you have seen too much of the
evils of nobility and of feudal oppression in the old world, to wish to
fall in with them in the new."

"Der nobles ant der feudal privileges ist no goot," answered the
trinket-pedlar, shaking his head with an appearance of great distaste.

"Ay, I knew it would be so; you see, Mr. Warren, no man who has ever
lived under a feudal system can ever feel otherwise."

"But what have we to do with feudal systems, Mr. Newcome? and what is
there in common between the landlords of New York and the nobles of
Europe, and between their leases and feudal tenures?"

"What is there? A vast deal too much, sir, take my word for it. Do not
our very governors, even while ruthlessly calling on one citizen to
murder another----"

"Nay, nay, Mr. Newcome," interrupted Mary Warren, laughing, "the
governors call on the citizens _not_ to murder each other."

"I understand you, Miss Mary; but we shall make anti-renters of you both
before we are done. Surely, sir, there is a great deal too much
resemblance between the nobles of Europe and our landlords, when the
honest and free-born tenants of the last are obliged to pay tribute for
permission to live on the very land