"Who is your BOSS, pocket-handkerchief?" demanded the shirt, a perfect stranger to me, by the way, for I had never seen him before the accidents of the wash-tub brought us in collision; "who is your boss, pocket-handkerchief, I say?—you are so very fine, I should like to know something of your history."
From all I had heard and read, I was satisfied my neighbor was a Yankee shirt, both from his curiosity and from his abrupt manner of asking questions; still I was at a loss to know the meaning of the word BOSS, my clairvoyance being totally at fault. It belongs to no language known to the savans or academicians.
{savans = scholars}
"I am not certain, sir," I answered, "that I understand your meaning. What is a BOSS?"
{boss = Cooper was annoyed by American euphemisms, such as using the Dutch word "boss" in place of "master"—a custom he blamed largely on New England "Yankees"}
"Oh! that's only a republican word for 'master.' Now, Judge Latitat is MY boss, and a very good one he is, with the exception of his sitting so late at night at his infernal circuits, by the light of miserable tallow candles. But all the judges are alike for that, keeping a poor shirt up sometimes until midnight, listening to cursed dull lawyers, and prosy, caviling witnesses."
{circuits = American "circuit judges" travelled from town to town, holding court in each and sleeping at local inns and taverns}
"I beg you to recollect, sir, that I am a female pocket-handkerchief, and persons of your sex are bound to use temperate and proper language in the presence of ladies.
"Yes, I see you are feminine, by your ornaments—still, you might tell a fellow who is your boss?"
"I belong, at present, to Colonel Silky, if that is what you mean; but I presume some fair lady will soon do me the honor of transferring me to her own wardrobe. No doubt my future employer—is not that the word?—will be one of the most beautiful and distinguished ladies of New York."