'It was very vulgar, however,' observed I. 'The first process is to kiss the hand.'
'Ogh!' cried Jerry, 'that is a slobbering trick, to be mumbling knuckles just as a pup niggles at a bone. I am the man to take at once, and fluster a woman, and reckon her ribs for her. No creeping up, and up, and up; and then down, and down, and down, for me—Why, as I hope to be saved, I gave that same widow a thundering kiss on three days acquaintance.'
'Poor thing!' exclaimed I. 'Well, and what did she say?'
'Say? why she said, "Be quiet now, though I know you can't." So, of course, I kissed her still more; while she changed colour in a minute as often as a blackberry in a month. "Ha done, do;" says she, "or I will call out, only there is nobody at home;"—when, at the moment, in pops the valet, and catches us lip to lip.
'Now he was a conceited sort of a chap, who used to set himself off with great airs, shew his white hands—that, I verily believe, he washed every day of his life;—curse and swear just like a gentleman, keep a tooth-brush, and make both his heels meet when he bowed.
'Well, I had nothing upon earth to oppose to all this but a bit of a quarrel;—that was my strong point;—and sure enough, I gave him such a beating for catching us, that the widow thought me main stout, and married me in a week.
'With her money I set up shop; and I did not much mind her being ten years older than myself, since she was ten times richer. I only copied my own father there; for he once happened to be divided between two girls, one of them with a single cow for her portion, and the other with two cows; so he consulted his landlord which of them he should marry, and his landlord bade him by all means marry the girl with the two cows; "for," says he, "there is not a cow difference between any two women."
'So now that is my history.'
'If I am to collect from it,' said I, 'the character of your countrymen in your own class of life, I must conclude that they are frank, generous, and noble; but neglected in their morals and education, and oppressed by their superiors.'
'Ay, there is the matter,' said Jerry. 'By way of keeping us quiet they keep us down. Now that is just the way to prevent our keeping quiet, for it is natural that men who are kept down should try to rise up.'