“I say ye might find sich a stable as ye want by lookin’ in the right-hand corner. Luck to ye, ennyway,” and the bootblack was speedily lost in the crowd.
“Drat the leetle feller’s pictur! If I had my thumb and finger on him I’d pinch his throat for answering a civil question in that oncivil way.”
“What was that you said, friend?” asked a man, who had come hurrying toward him. “Why, can this be possible?” continued the newcomer, slapping him on the shoulder. “By Jove, but this is the pleasantest surprise of my life. Have you just come to New York, Mr. Reyburnbrook?”
By this time the man from the country was able to get a good view of the speaker, who was a tall, genteel, well-dressed person of middle life, and he said:
“Guess ye air mistook in your man this time, mister. I ain’t no sich name as Bumbrook at all. I’m just plain Elihu Cornhill, deacon o’ the church at Basinburg, where I wish I was this blessed minute. Things and folks air so tarnal thick round here one can’t draw a long breath, and——”
“Excuse me,” interrupted the other, “I can see my mistake now, Deacon Cornhill, and I offer a thousand apologies for troubling you. Do you know you look as like a friend of mine as a pea in the same pod? Good-day.”
“It’s funny queer!” exclaimed the bewildered Deacon Cornhill, “folks air in sich a pesky hurry they can’t stop to put one on his right track. I s’pose I must keep jogging, as if I was over in our lot looking for the cows.”
Meanwhile, the man who had left so abruptly after accosting him, sought another a short distance away, and who had evidently been waiting for him. Together the couple hastily examined a condensed New England directory, which the former produced from his pocket. After a short consultation they separated, one going at right angles to the street, followed by the unsuspecting countryman, while the other gave him pursuit.
Finding that the crowd of passers-by jostled him as he hastened on his way, Deacon Cornhill gathered his huge gripsack close under his right arm, pulled his hat down upon his large head, and kept stubbornly on his way, regardless of the elbowing and pushing of others, saying under his breath:
“Puts me in mind o’ goin’ through Squire Danvers’ brush lot, but I reckon I can stand it if they can.”