"If you think they'll du, why I don't care if I hitch tackle with you agin; but if the notion takes me to cut stick for Washington or Weathersfield some of these days, I ain't sartin but you'll find me among the missing, but howsomever, I'll give you a try at a few letters; but I've got my hand out, I can tell you. Stringing onions and writing letters on genteel society, ain't the same thing by no sort of means. So now that's all settled, I'm off like shot off a shovel."
With that I shook hands with the Editor of the Express, and made tracks for the sloop about the tickledest feller that ever you did see.
Your loving son,
Jonathan Slick.
[LETTER XXI.]
Jonathan Visits Mr. Hogg's Garden and gets a Bouquet—Puzzled about the propriety of Paying for it—Purchases a Ribbon, and starts for the Theatre.
Dear Par:
The minit I got to the sloop I took off my coat, for I didn't seem to hum enough in the Astor House to write there. I sot down in the cabin, and stretching out my legs on a butter-tub, I turned up my ristbands and wrote off the letter that I sent you t'other day on the top of an onion barrel, without stopping once, I was so tarnationed anxious to let you know how I was a getting along.
I had to bite off short, for a chap come aboard the sloop with Captin Doolittle to bargain for the cargo of cider and garden sarse. I was afeared that they would want to overhaul my writing desk, and so made myself scarce, and went up to the Express with the letter stuck loose inside the crown of my hat, editor fashion.