“Have you any eggs, butter, or chickens to sell?”
“Wal, yes,” replied the farmer, slowly surveying the young trader from head to foot. “We’ve got some. Be you a buyin’?”
“Yes,” answered Tom. “I am paying the highest market prices—the very highest.”
“Wal, yes! But how much?” asked the man.
“That depends upon the quality of your goods,” replied Tom promptly, assuming a very knowing look, as if he understood what he was talking about. “Let me see what you have to sell, and then I’ll tell you what I’ll give for it.”
“Wal, sartin; step this way.”
Captain Newcombe and his mate followed the farmer, who conducted them around the building, and into a room, which he called the “milk-house;” where he showed them a large basket of eggs, beside which stood a tub that contained several rolls of fine fresh butter.
“How many dozen have you?” asked Tom, after he had held one of the eggs toward the sun to see if it was fresh, though, the fact was, he knew as much about the matter before he made his examination as he did afterward.
“O, they are all right,” said the farmer. “If you can find a bad one among ’em, I’ll give ’em all to you. Now, let me see how many there are. There’s just twenty dozen an’ two over,” he continued, after he had counted them—“call it even twenty dozen. Now, how much be you payin’?”
“Well,” answered Tom slowly, as if he was thinking the matter over, “eggs are high now, and I’ll give you twenty cents a dozen for them.”