'Want to buy!—you're wus off than I thought you was. Why, didn't you plant any? How did you think you was goin' to live? like Bill Moore and his brother down the lane here? eh?'
'Oh, no sir, we have plenty for our use; but we can sell quite a quantity of these articles, more than we shall have.'
'And pray tell me what you call a quantity, mister.'
'Why, we want two or three hundred bushels.'
'Two or three hundred bushels!' And the old man took off his hat and began to fan himself again very fast. 'Two or three hundred bushels!—you boys wasn't neither on you brought up to lie, but I don't know but you've taken up the trade; it's pretty easy larnt, to be sure.'
'It's true, Uncle Sam, what Jim tells you; true as we stand here.'
'Sam Oakum, them eyes o' yourn warn't made to help a lyin' tongue; so don't stand there looking so honest, and telling me sich stuff as that.'
'It is true, Mr. Cutter, just as Sam says; we are telling you the truth, and no joke about it.'
But the old man kept shaking his head and fanning himself; so that Jim felt called upon to tell their whole story.
'Now boys, is this true, you're tellin' me? Sam, you're a smilin'; there's some catch about it, ain't there, you rogue?'