The Clockmaker — or, the Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville

This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan with help from
Charles Franks and Distributed Proofers.
The Clockmaker; or The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick, of Slickville,
by Thomas Chandler Haliburton.
Garrit aniles ex re fabellas —Horace.
The cheerful sage, when solemn dictates fail, Conceals the moral counsel in a tale.
Halifax, N. S. 1836.
The following Sketches, as far as the twenty-first No. originally appeared in THE NOVASCOTIAN newspaper. The great popularity they acquired, induced the Editor of that paper, to apply to the Author for the remaining part of the series, and permission to publish the whole entire. This request having been acceded to, the Editor has now the pleasure of laying them before the public in their present shape.
Halifax, December, 1836.
SLICK'S LETTER 1. The Trotting Horse 2. The Clockmaker 3. The Silent Girls 4. Conversations at the River Philip 5. Justice Pettifog 6. Anecdotes 7. Go Ahead 8. The Preacher that Wandered from His Text 9. Yankee Eating and Horse Feeding 10. The Road to a Woman's Heart—The Broken Heart 11. Cumberland Oysters Produce Melancholy Forebodings 12. The American Eagle 13. The Clockmaker's Opinion of Halifax 14. Sayings and Doings in Cumberland 15. The Dancing Master Abroad 16. Mr. Slick's Opinion of the British 17. A Yankee Handle for a Halifax Blade 18. The Grahamite and the Irish Pilot 19. The Clockmaker Quilts a Blue Nose 20. Sister Sall's Courtship 21. Setting up for Governor 22. A Cure for Conceit 23. The Blowin Time 24. Father John O'Shaughnessy 25. Taming a Shrew 26. The Minister's Horn Mug 27. The White Nigger 28. Fire in the Dairy 29. A Body Without a Head 30. A Tale of Bunker's Hill 31. Gulling a Blue Nose 32. Too many Irons in the Fire 33. Windsor and the Far West
To MR. HOWE,
SIR.—I received your letter, and note its contents; I aint over half pleased, I tell you; I think I have been used scandalous, that's a fact. It warn't the part of a gentleman for to go and pump me arter that fashion and then go right off and blart it out in print. It was a nasty dirty mean action, and I don't thank you nor the Squire a bit for it. It will be more nor a thousand dollars out of my pocket. There's an eend to the Clock trade now, and a pretty kettle of fish I've made of it, hav'nt I? I shall never hear the last on it, and. what am I to say when I go back to the States? I'll take my oath I never said one half the stuff he has set down there; and as for that long lochrum about Mr. Everett, and the Hon. Alden Gobble, and Minister, there aint a word of truth in it from beginnin to eend. If ever I come near hand to him agin, I'll larn him—but never mind, I say nothin. Now there's one thing I don't cleverly understand. If this here book is my Sayins and Doins, how comes it yourn or the Squire's either? If my thoughts and notions are my own, how can they be any other folks's? According to my idee you have no more right to take them, than you have to take my clocks without payin for 'em. A man that would be guilty of such an action is no gentleman, that's flat, and if you don't like it, you may lump it—for I don't valy him nor you, neither, nor are a Blue Nose that ever stept in shoe leather the matter of a pin's head. I don't know as ever I felt so ugly afore since I was raised; why didn't he put his name to it, as well as mine? When an article han't the maker's name and factory on it, it shows its a cheat, and he's ashamed to own it. If I'm to have the name I'll have the game, or I'll know the cause why, that's a fact? Now folks say you are a considerable of a candid man, and right up and down in your dealins, and do things above board, handsum—at least so I've hearn tell. That's what I like; I love to deal with such folks. Now spose you make me an offer? You'll find me not very difficult to trade with, and I don't know but I might put off more than half of the books myself, tu. I'll tell you how I'd work it. I'd say, Here's a book they've namesaked arter me, Sam Slick the Clockmaker, but it tante mine, and I can't altogether jist say rightly whose it is. Some say it's the General's, and some say its the Bishop's, and some say its Howe himself; but I aint availed who it is. Its a wise child that knows its own father. It wipes up the Blue Noses considerable hard, and don't let off the Yankees so very easy neither, but it's generally allowed to be about the prettiest book ever writ in this country; and although it aint altogether jist gospel what's in it, there's some pretty home truths in it, that's a fact. Whoever wrote it must be a funny feller, too, that's sartin; for there are some queer stories in it that no soul could help larfin at, that's a fact. Its about the wittiest book I ever seed. Its nearly all sold off, but jist a few copies I've kept for my old customers. The price is just 5s. 6d. but I'll let you have it for 5s. because you'll not get another chance to have one. Always ax a sixpence more than the price, and then bate it, and when Blue Nose hears that, he thinks he's got a bargain, and bites directly. I never see one on 'em yet that didn't fall right into the trap.