“Easy as eatin’ punkin-pie. Jehosophet! I hain’t been five year in the tradin’ line ’ithout lernin’ the bizness, I recking.”
“Be me faith! yez must have been raal cliver at it, whin ye sowld them cypress-knees for bacon-hams to the Bawltemoreans. You remimber that story yez towld us down in Mixico?”
“Yees; certingly I remember it—he, he, he! But I kim a better trick then thet on the Orleens people ’bout five yeer ago—jest ’fore I jined the Rangers.”
“Fwhat was it, shure?”
“We—ell, ye see, I wan’t allers es poor es I’m now. I hed a pertnership in a bit o’ a schooner, es used to trade ’tween Bosting an’ Orleens, an’ we used to load her wi’ all sorts o’ notions, to sell to the Orleens folk. Jehosophet an’ pork-pies! they air fools, an’ no mistake—them Creole French. We ked a sold ’em wooden nutmegs, an’ brick-dust for Cayenne pepper, an’ such like; an’ I ’bout guess es how we did spekoolate a leetle in thet line o’ bizness. Wall, there kim a time when they tuk a notion they ked make cheep brogan, as they call ’em, out o’ allygator’s leather, an’ supply the hul nigger market wi’ ’em. The neels were dear, an’ so they tuk to usin’ boot-pegs; but not hevin’ a manafactry o’ the pegs down south, they hed to git ’em from the no’th. Jest then, my pertner an’ I thought o’ makin’ a spekoolashun on the pegs; so we loaded our schooner wi’ thet eer freight, chuck right up to the hetches; an’ then sot off from Bosting for Orleens. We thort we’d make our derned fortune out thet eer trip.”
“Shure yez did, didn’t ye?”
“No-o-o; neer a bit o’ ’t. It keemd nigh breakin’ us.”
“Arrah, how?”
“We-ell! ye see, when we got roun’ to Orleens, we learnt that the boot-trade hed a’most stopped. The allygator leather didn’t turn out jest the thing for brogans; an’ besides, it got sca’ce by reezun o’ the killin’ o’ them verming. In coorse, the pegs hed fell in price; they’d kim down so low, that we ked only git twenty-five cents a bushel for ’em!”
“Mother ov Moses! only twenty-five cents a bushel!”