He looked real sort o' meachin' as I spoke; and he said in considerable of a meek voice,—
“I was talkin' to you about a new feller, jest got up by the richest firm in North America.”
“What difference does it make to me who he belongs to? I don't care if he belongs to Vanderbilt, or Aster'ses family. Principle—that is what I am a workin' on; and the same principle that would hender me from buyin' a feller that was poor as a snail, would hender me from buyin' one that had the riches of Creshus; it wouldn't make a mite of difference to me.
“As the poet Mr. Burns says,—I have heard Thomas J. repeat it time and agin, and I always liked it: I may not get the words exactly right, but the meanin' is,—
“Rank is only the E pluribus Unum stamp, on the trade dollar: a feller is a feller for all that.”
But I'll be hanged if he didn't, after all my expenditure of wind and eloquence, and quotin' poetry, and every thing—if he didn't turn round at the foot of that doorstep, and strikin' that same patient, determined attitude of hisen, say, says he,—
“You are mistaken, mom. I merely stopped this mornin' to see if I could sell you”—