“Well,” sais he, “I’ll tell you;” and he gave me all the particulars.
Sais I, “It’s no good, two important ingredients are wantin’, and you haven’t tempered it right, and it won’t stick.”
Sais he, “I guess it will stick till I leave the city, and that will answer me and my eends.”
“No,” sais I, “it won’t, it will ruin you for ever, and injure the reputation of Connecticut among the nations of the airth. Come to me when I return to Slickville, and I will show you the proper thing in use, tested by experience, in tanks, in brick and stone walls, and in a small furnace. Give me two thousand dollars for the receipt, take out a patent, and your fortune is made.”
“Well,” sais he, “I will if it’s all you say, for there is a great demand for the article, if it’s only the true Jeremiah.”
“Don’t mind what I say,” said I, “ask it what it says, there it is, go look at it.”
Well, you would have to give these Haligonians a coat of white-wash that would stick till you leave the town. But that’s your affair, and not mine. I hold the mirror truly, and don’t flatter. Now, Halifax is a sizable place, and covers a good deal of ground, it is most as large as a piece of chalk, which will give a stranger a very good notion of it. It is the seat of government, and there are some very important officers there, judging by their titles. There are a receiver-general, an accountant-general, an attorney-general, a solicitor-general, a commissary-general, an assistant commissary-general, the general in command, the quartermaster-general, the adjutant-general, the vicar-general, surrogate-general, and postmaster-general. His Excellency the governor, and his Excellency the admiral. The master of the Rolls, their lordships the judges, the lord bishop, and the archbishop, archdeacon, secretary for the Home department, and a host of great men, with the handle of honourable to their names. Mayors, colonels, and captains, whether of the regulars or the militia, they don’t count more than fore-cabin passengers. It ain’t considered genteel for them to come abaft the paddle-wheel. Indeed, the quarter-deck wouldn’t accommodate so many. Now, there is the same marvel about this small town that there was about the scholar’s head—
“And still the wonder grew,
How one small head could carry all he knew.”
Well, it is a wonder so many great men can be warm-clothed, bedded-down, and well stalled there, ain’t it? But they are, and very comfortably, too. This is the upper crust; now the under crust consists of lawyers, doctors, merchants, army and navy folks, small officials, articled clerks, and so on. Well, in course such a town, I beg pardon, it is a city (which is more than Liverpool in England is), and has two cathedral churches, with so many grades, trades, blades, and pretty maids in it, the talk must be various. The military talk is professional, with tender reminiscences of home, and some little boasting, that they are suffering in their country’s cause by being so long on foreign service at Halifax. The young swordknots that have just joined are brim full of ardour, and swear by Jove (the young heathens) it is too bad to be shut up in this vile hole (youngsters, take my advice, and don’t let the town’s-people hear that, or they will lynch you), instead of going to Constantinople.
“I say, Lennox, wouldn’t that be jolly work?”