"Oh, nothing," laughed John. "Only a shudder of disgust."
"Yass, seh. Well, it is disgusting ev'm to me. You see, I discerns all these here New Dixie projeckin'. I behole how they all a-makin' they sun'ry chicken-pies, which notinstanin' they all diff'ent, yit they all alike, faw they all turnovers! Yass, seh, they all spreads hafe acrost the dish an' then tu'n back. I has been entitle Slick an' Slippery Leggett—an' yit what has I always espress myseff? Gen'lemen, they must be sufficiend plenty o' chicken-pie to go round. An', Mr. March, if she don't be round, she won't go round. 'Tis true the scripter say, To them what hath shell be givened, an' to them what hath not shell be takened away that which seem like they hath; but the scripter's one thing an' chicken-pie's anotheh."
"Listen," whispered John, stopping the horse; and when Mr. Leggett would have begun again—"Oh, do shut your everlasting——"
"P-he-he-he-he!" tittered the mulatto under his breath. John started again and Leggett resumed.
"Whew! I'm that thusty! Ain't you got no sawt o' pain-killeh about yo' clo'es? Aw! Mr. March, mos' sholy you is got some. No gen'leman ain't goin' to be out this time o' night 'ithout some sawt o' corrective—Lawd! I wisht you had! Cayn't we stop som'er's an' git some? Lawd! I wisht we could! I'm jest a-honin' faw some sawt o' wetness.
"But exhumin' my subjec', Mr. March, thass anotheh thing the scripters evince—that ev'y man shall be judge' by his axe. Yass, seh, faw of co'se ev'y man got his axe to grime. I got mine. You got yo's, ain't you?—Well, o' co'se. I respec' you faw it! Yass, seh; but right there the question arise, is it a public axe? An' if so, is it a good one? aw is it a private axe? aw is it both? Of co'se, ef a man got a good public axe to grime, he espec'—an' you espec' him—to bring his private axe along an' git hit grime at the same junction. Thass natchiul. Thass all right an' puffiely corrosive. On'y we must take tu'ns tunnin' the grime-stone. You grime my axe, I grime yo's. How does that strack you, Mr. March?"
John's reply was enthusiastic. "Why, it strikes me as positively mephitic."
"Mr. March, thass what it is! Thass the ve'y word! Now, shell me an' you fulfil the scripter—'The white man o' the mountains an' the Etheropium o' the valleys shell jine they han's an' the po' man's axe shell be grime'?' Ain't them words sweet? Ain't they jess pufficly syruptitious? My country, 'tis of thee! Oh, Mr. March, ef you knowed how much patri'tism I got!—You hear them Suez fellehs say this is a white man's country an' cayn't eveh be a rich man's country till it is a white man's——"
"See here, now; I tell you for the last time, if you value your life you'd better make less noise."
"Yass, seh. Lawd, I cayn't talk; I'm that thusty I'm a-spitt'n' cotton!—No, seh! White man ain't eveh goin' to lif hisseff up by holdin' niggeh down, an' that's the pyo chaotic truth; now, ain't it?"