"Ef that was all, you wouldn't catch me goin' over and spendin' a heap of money, all for nothin'. That ain't business."
"Then I suppose you go on business?"
"I guess I do. You see I've invented a new plow, that, I guess, is goin' to take the shine off of any other that's in use, and it kinder struck me that ef I should take it to the Paris Exhibition, I might, may be, make somethin' out of it. I've heerd that they're a good deal behind in farm tools in the old European countries, and I guess I'll open their eyes a little with my plow."
"I hope you'll succeed, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank, politely.
"I guess I shall. You see, I've risked considerable money onto it—that is, in travelin' expenses and such like. You see, my Uncle Abner—he wasn't my real uncle, that is, by blood, but he was the husband of my Aunt Matilda, my mother's oldest sister—didn't have no children of his own, so he left me two thousand dollars in his will."
Mr. Tarbox paused in order to see what effect the mention of this great inheritance would have upon his auditor.
"Indeed you were lucky, Mr. Tarbox," said Frank.
"I guess I felt tickled when I heard of it. I jist kicked like a two-year-old colt. Wal, now, dad wanted me to buy a thirty-acre farm that was for sale about half a mile from his'n, but I wouldn't. I'd about fetched my plow out right, and I wa'n't goin' to settle down on no two-thousand-dollar farm. Catch me! No; I heerd of this Paris Exhibition, and I vowed I'd come out here and see what could be did. So here I am. I ain't sorry I cum, though I was about sick enough to die. Thought I should a-turned inside out one night when the vessel was goin' every which way."
"I was sick myself that night," said Frank.