"How did you get these pretty things?" said I.
"By consenting to be married," he replied. "It was easy enough. She squints, and her grammar is defective, but she is a good little thing."
The third beggar ran his fingers through the pile of gold before him, and took up a coin, now and then, to flip it in the air.
"How did you earn this?" I asked.
"Earn it!" said he scornfully, "do you take me for a labouring man? These fellows here lent me something, and I bet on how much corn that fellow down there with the plough would raise—and the rest—why, the rest was luck, sheer luck!"
"And you?" I turned to the fourth beggar who had a huge bag beside him, so full of silver that the dimes and quarters ran from the mouth of it.
"I," said he loftily, "am a Reformer. The people love me and give me whatever I want, because I tell them that these other beggars have no right to their money. I am going to be President."
At this they all burst into shouts of laughter and rolled on the grass. Even the Reformer chuckled a little.
While they were laughing, the ploughman came up with an axe and began to chop at the bush.