"Why, that's most long enough to make you citizens. Where do you live?"
"Nowhere; I lifs jest asht it happens—soometimes here, ant soometimes dere."
"Ay, ay! I understand—no legal domicile, but lead a wandering life. Have you many of these watches for sale?"
"Yees—I haf asht many as twenty. Dey are as sheep as dirt, and go like pig clocks."
"And what may be your price for this?"
"Dat you can haf for only eight tollars. Effery poty wilt say it is golt, dat doesn't know petter."
"Oh! it isn't gold then—I swan!"—what this oath meant I never exactly knew, though I suppose it to be a Puritan mode of saying "I swear!" the attempts to cheat the devil in this way being very common among their pious descendants, though even "Smith Thompson" himself can do no man any good in such a case of conscience—"I swan! you come plaguy near taking even me in! Will you come down from that price any?"
"If you wilt gif me some atfice, perhaps I may. You look like a goot shentlemans, and one dat woultn't sheat a poor Charmans; ant effery poty wants so much to sheat de poor Charmans, dat I will take six, if you will drow in some atfice."
"Advice? You have come to the right man for that? Walk a little this way, where we shall be alone. What is the natur' of the matter—action on the case, or a tort?"
"Nein, nein! it isht not law dat I wants, put atfice."