“I have no wife.”
“No wife, ton pee? Who turn your fish for you, den?”
“Whereat they all laugh, and all talk French again. And oracle says, ‘He takes his own eggs to market, den.’ He don’t laugh at that, for wits never laugh at their own jokes; but the rest snicker till they actilly scream.
“What wind are we going to have, Lewis?”
Oracle stands up, carefully surveys the sky, and notices all the signs, and then looks wise, and answers in a way that there can be no mistake. “Now you see, Sare, if de wind blow off de shore, den it will be west wind; if it blow from de sea, den it will be east wind; and if it blow down coast,” pointing to each quarter with his hand like a weather-cock, “den it will sartain be sout; and up de coast, den you will be sartain it will come from de nort. I never knew dat sign fail.” And he takes his pipe from his mouth, knocks some ashes out of it, and spits in the water, as much as to say, Now I am ready to swear to that. And well he may, for it amounts to this, that the wind will blow from any quarter it comes from. The other three all regard him with as much respect as if he was clerk of the weather.
“Interesting people these, Doctor,” said I, “ain’t they? It’s the world before the Flood. I wonder if they know how to trade? Barter was the primitive traffick. Corn was given for oil, and fish for honey, and sheep and goats for oxen and horses, and so on. There is a good deal of trickery in barter, too, for necessity has no laws. The value of money we know, and a thing is worth what it will fetch in cash; but swapping is a different matter. It’s a horse of a different colour.”
“You will find,” said the doctor, “the men (I except the other sex always) are as acute as you are at a bargain. You are more like to be bitten than to bite if you try that game with them.”
“Bet you a dollar,” sais I, “I sell that old coon as easy as a clock. What, a Chesencooker a match for a Yankee! Come, I like that; that is good. Here goes for a trial, at any rate.
“Mounsheer,” sais I, “have you any wood to sell?”
We didn’t need no wood, but it don’t do to begin to ask for what you want, or you can’t do nothin’.