“For true.”
“Tanky, Massa Rattlin, dear, tanky; you make me very happy; but, for true, no. Were you older more fifteen year, or me more fifteen year younger, perhaps—but tank ye much for de comblement. Now go, and tell buckra doctor.”
So, as I could not reward my kind physician with my hand, which, by-the-by, I should not have offered had I not been certain of refusal, I was obliged to force upon her as splendid a trinket as I could purchase, for a keepsake, and gave my sable nurses a handful of bits each. Bits of what? say the uninitiated.
I don’t know whether I have described this fever case very nosologically, but, very truly I know I have.
Chapter Fifty Four.
A new character introduced, who claimeth old acquaintanceship—Not very honest by his own account, which giveth him more the appearance of honesty than he deserveth—He proveth to be a steward not inclined to hide his talent in a napkin.
During all the time that these West Indian events had been occurring, that is, nearly three years, I had no other communication with England than regularly and repeatedly sending there various pieces of paper thus headed, “This, my first of exchange, my second and third not paid;” or for variety’s sake, “This, my second of exchange, my first and third,” etcetera; or, to be more various still, “This, my third, my first and second,”—all of which received more attention than their strange phraseology seemed to entitle them to.
But I must now introduce a new character; one that attended me for years, like an evil shadow, nor left me until the “beginning of the end.”