“Then I ain’t goin’ to do it,” answered Joel Perkins. “Where be you a-going?” he asked, after another pause.
“I’m going up to the Grand Central Depot.”
“Thet’s where I cum in yesterday. I’m from Stoneville, Vermont. Ever been up that way?”
“No, sir.”
“’Tain’t much of a place. Squire Rasperwick owns almost the hull of it. His daughter is engaged to marry my nephew, Joe Swallowtail.”
“Is that so?”
“I come down to the city to buy my nephew something nice fer the wedding. But they ask a pile fer nice things down here. I priced a rug an’ they wanted twenty-eight dollars fer it. ‘Say, mister,’ sez I, ‘I don’t want the hull dozen, I only want one.’ And then he told me to git out o’ the shop.”
“Perhaps you’ll find a cheaper rug somewhere else?”
“Sumbuddy told me to go to the Bowery, but I ain’t going. I know a feller that went there onct, an’ he got drugged an’ robbed o’ nine dollars and thirty-four cents. They ain’t going to rob me, not much they ain’t.”
“I hope not.”