“Who?” said she.
“Sam Slick,” sais I.
“My goodness,” said she, “are you the Mr Slick who used to sell—” She paused and coloured slightly, thinking perhaps, as many people do, I would be ashamed to be reminded of pedling.
“Wooden clocks,” sais I, helping her to the word. “Yes,” sais I, “I am Sam Slick the Clockmaker, at least what is left of me.”
“Goodness gracious, Sir,” said she, advancing and shaking hands cordially with me, “how glad I am to see you! You don’t recollect me of course, I have grown so since we met, and I don’t recollect your features, for it is so long ago, but I mind seeing you at my father’s old house, Deacon Flint’s, as well as if it was yesterday. We bought a clock from you; you asked mother’s leave to let you put it up, and leave it in the room till you called for it. You said you trusted to ‘soft sawder’ to get it into the house, and to ‘human natur’ that it should never come out of it. How often our folks have laughed over that story. Dear, dear, only to think we should have ever met again,” and going to a trunk she took out of a bark-box a silver sixpence with a hole in it, by which it was suspended on a black ribbon.
“See, Sir, do you recollect that, you gave that to me for a keepsake? you said it was ‘luck-money.’”
“Well,” sais I, “if that don’t pass, don’t it? Oh, dear, how glad I am to see you, and yet how sad it makes me too! I am delighted at meetin’ you so onexpected, and yet it makes me feel so old it scares me. It only seems as if it was the other day when I was at your father’s house, and since then yon have growd up from a little girl into a tall handsome woman, got married, been settled, and are the mother of two children. Dear me, it’s one o’ the slaps old Father Time gives me in the face sometimes, as much as to hint, ‘I say, Slick, you are gettin’ too old now to talk so much nonsense as you do.’ Well,” sais I, “my words have come true about that silver sixpence.”
“Come here, my little man,” sais I to her pretty curly-headed little boy; “come here to me,” and I resumed my seat. “Now,” sais I, “my old friend, I will show you how that prophecy is fulfilled to this child. That clock I sold to Deacon Flint only cost me five dollars, and five dollars more would pay duty, freight, and carriage, and all expenses, which left five pounds clear profit, but that warn’t the least share of the gain. It introduced my wares all round and through the country, and it would have paid me well if I had given him a dozen clocks for his patronage. I always thought I would return him that profit if I could see him, and as I can’t do that I will give it to this little boy,” so I took out my pocket-book and gave her twenty dollars for him.
“Come,” sais I, “my friend, that relieves my conscience now of a debt of gratitude, for that is what I always intended to do if I got a chance.”
Well, she took it, said it was very kind, and would be a great help to them; but that she didn’t see what occasion there was to return the money, for it was nothing but the fair profit of a trade, and the clock was a most excellent one, kept capital time, and was still standing in the old house.