When we stopped the man asked if we had “any cheap bargains in fresh fish.”
“Yes,” said John, “I have, an’ I’ll tell ye what I’ll do. I hain’t sold many to-day, an’ I’ve got about twenty left. If you’ll take the whole bunch, you can have ’em fer a dollar an’ a half.”
“I can use two of ’em, at ten cents apiece, if you’ll let me pick ’em out,” the man replied.
“Giddap!” said John, and we were once more on our way.
Pride is the most expensive thing in the world, and under various forms it dominates mankind. I could not help but admire John’s resolute sacrifice of this opportunity to add twenty cents in “cash-money” to the greasy pouch, which sorely needed it, but evidently he was following a policy that had in it much wisdom.
After crossing the marshy strip, we went through the sand hills, and down the beach to Sipes’s place, where I had left my boat.
We found him peacefully smoking out in front of his shanty, apparently without a care in the world.
John showed Sipes the fish he had brought back, and gave him the things he had bought for him at the store. When the account was all figured out, there was a balance of twelve cents in John’s favor, which Sipes said “we’ll make up next time.” He was deeply disappointed that there was no “cash-money” coming.
Sipes considered the fish that were to go to the smoke-house “a dead loss, an’ they’d soon be worse’n that.” He wanted “nothin’ to do with ’em after they struck the morgue.” He looked upon the smoke-house as a sink of iniquity, from which nothing good could possibly emanate.
I thanked John for his kindness in taking me with him, and bade him good-bye. He and Napoleon departed, and soon faded away in the distance.