"Jest so," sez the Captin, undoing his grip, "shell out, shell out."
The feller put his hand in his pocket and hauled out a swad of bills and five slips of paper with my name on em, all rumpled up together.
"Jest see tu him," sez the Captin, a nodden his head towards the chap, "while I see if it's all right." So he sot down on the silk settee close by that poor woman, and histing one leg over tother, spit on his fingers and counted over the money. It was all fair, so he rolled it up in a swad, put it intu the old wallet and handed it over to me.
"There," sez he, "Mr. Slick, I spose we may as well be a joggin."
With that he told the chap that he'd find the key in the closet door and the nigger safe, and we went down.
"There Jonathan," sez the Captin, "I rather guess we've done it! But what makes you look so womblecroped?"
"I don't know," sez I, a brushin my hands across my eyes, "but it seems tu me that I've lost something more than all that money's worth."
"And what is that?" sez he.
"It's the fust time on earth that I could believe that women could raly be so deceitful and bad. I feel as though I never should think so well of them agin—as if a part of my own heart had dried up all tu once. Captin, Captin, I'd rather work night and day for the money than feel so lonesome about the heart as I do now; I'd as lives stay in a world without sun, as to have no sartinty in the truth of women folks."
I remain your humble, but loving son,