I wish you could a seen how Captin Doolittle stared, as he stuck his face close up tu mine, giving his jack-knife a grip, he struck the butt eend of it down on the locker, and sez he,
"Jonathan, they're a spiling you down here in York, they be, by hokey! Go hum, I tell you, and marry Judy White—she knows what's what, and I can tell you these York gals that turn up their noses at the smell of onions, can't have decent bringing up any how. They've sot you agin onions already, and it wont be a great while afore you'll turn agin your own relations."
"Now," sez I, "Captain Doolittle, don't say that are, it makes me feel bad, and I don't desarve it. A feller that will let money, or a stuck up name, or the handsomest gal that ever trod shoe leather set him agin his own father and mother, desarves tu be kicked tu death by grasshoppers."
This seemed to sort of mollify the captin, but he stripped the peel off another onion mighty wrothy, and arter a minit sez he. "Wal, Jonathan, I'm glad to hear that you've got some of your old notions left, but I always make a pint not to talk when I'm a eating, so if you won't set by, why just keep a stiff jaw while I stow away another slice of pork and this piece of onion, and then I'm the man for you."
With that he went to cutting off a chunk of pork and a chunk of onion to hand about, till it fairly made my eyes water to see him crunch them down. Arter a while he wiped his jack-knife on his cuff, shut it tew with a jerk, and put it in his trousers' pocket; then he took a pull at the mug, and arter he'd got a long nine purty well a going, he stretched out his legs, and sez he:
"Wal, Jonathan, what did you come for, if you didn't want nothing to eat?"
With that I sot down and told him all about my pussey cousin. I could see that the critter had heard on him afore by the way he twisted his mouth around about the long nine; but when I told him about the carriage and rooster and so on, he jest took and gave the long nine a fling, clapped his thumb agin the side of his nose, and winking one eye, make his fingers twinkle up and down for as much as a minit without saying a word; arter a while he asked the critter's name, and when I told him, he jumped up, cut a pigeon wing over the locker, and stopping right afore me, winked t'other eye, and sez he—
"Look a here, Jonathan, didn't your par never tell you about Jase Slick, the great lazy coon, that got married and went off West, because he was so allfired lazy that he couldn't git a living like other folks? Jest let me cool off a leetle, and I'll tell you all about him."
With that the Captin brushed away the onion skins and we sot down together on the locker, and sez he—"Mebby your par never told you what an etarnal lazy shote Jase was, but he did beat all natur for doing nothing but swop jack-knives and pitch coppers. He was a tickler though at trapping mushrats and shooting foxes, and he use to send the skins down here to York. Now it aint common that you'll find a lazy shack of a feller very tight about money, but Jase was as close as the bark of a tree; he'd a skinned a musketoe any day for the hide and taller. I don't believe the critter ever stood treat in his hull life; I don't, by gracious.
"Wal, arter all, he warn't a bad hearted feller; but when he see that all the gals turned up their noses at him, and didn't give him invites to their quiltings and so on, he coaxed me to let him work his passage down here to York. He used to send his skins by me, and so I kinder felt for him, and kept track on him a good while arter he got here. He did purty tolerably well at first, considering who it was—he bought a hand-cart, and took people's trunks and sich things up from the steamboats and sloops that put into Peck slip; but there was too much work about that to suit him; so he got somebody to lend him a little money and sot up a rum shop close by the slip.