I kinder larfed in my sleeve to hear the sly coot try to come round, and find out who I was and all about me. Sez I to myself, I ain't quite sartin about the tall chap there, but I'll be blamed if you've the least bit of Yankee in you. Now a feller of rale ginuine grit would cum up to the mark tu once, and would a jest asked a feller right out who he was, and where he cum from, and how much he was worth, and how much he owed, besides some cute questions about his wife and children, if he wanted tu. Wal, thinks I, the man hain't been brought up to these things, and he ain't to be blamed for not knowing how. So I put one leg over t'other, and sez I,
"Wal, gentlemen, it ain't of no use to go circumventing round the subject, as old Deacon Miles used to in his exhortations, that had neither eend, middle, or beginning. So I'll jest up and tell right out who I am, and what I mean to du.
"I s'pose you've heard of Samuel Slick, that feller that wrote that tarnal smart book about Canada, wooden clocks, and matters and things in gineral?"
"Sam Slick, you mean," sez the tall editor.
"No, I don't," sez I, setting up straight; "he was baptized Samuel in the old Presbyterian Meeting-house in Weathersfield, and nobody but the newspaper chaps ever thought of calling him Sam. It's too bad this notion of cutting off the latter eend of a feller's name; it's a whittling things down a leetle too close, and looks as if a feller's father was so awful poor, that he couldn't afford to give a hull name to his posterity. Wal, Samuel Slick, Esquire, is my own natral born brother—I hain't no idee of bragging about my relation, because it's my notion that in a free country every feller ought to cut his own fodder; but when a man's relations is getting up in the world, it's of no use to be mealy-mouthed about owning 'em."
"Yes," says the tall chap. "Mr. Samuel Slick is a relation which any man might be proud to own."
I larfed a little. "Sartinly," sez I, "Samuel has contrived to come his 'soft sodder' over you newspaper chaps about the nicest. I've a notion, too, that they'll find out that I haint much behind hand with him; but I mean to write something about my life in Weathersfield one of these days, and send it to you to print.
"Now, I tell you what it is, I've a notion to hire an office somewhere down in Cherry street, and if you'll print my letters, why, I reckon I can make out to get a living out of these Yorkers, by hook or by crook. I mean to du things above board, and in an independent way, jest to see how the experiment 'ill work, but if I find that it won't do, I'll take up Samuel's plan, and go the soft sodder principle; his mode 'ill work tarnation well, and if they don't find Jonathan Slick, your most obedient servant to command, a chip from the same block, I'll lose my guess, that's all!"
When I said this, I got up and put on my hat, and then I happened to think about the fourpence halfpenny, and I turned to the chap that sot writing, and sez I—