“‘Can he do his mile in two fifteen?’
“‘He has done it.’
“‘Now between man and man,’ sais he, ‘what is your reason for selling the horse, Slick? for you are not so soft as to be tempted by price out of a first chop article like that.’
“‘Well, candidly,’ sais I, ‘for I am like a cow’s tail, straight up and down in my dealing, and ambition the clean thing.’”
“Straight up and down!” said the doctor aloud to himself; ‘straight up and down like a cow’s tail.’ Oh Jupiter! what a simile! and yet it ain’t bad, for one end is sure to be in the dirt. A man may be the straight thing, that is right up and down, like a cow’s tail, but hang me if he can be the clean thing anyhow he can fix it.” And he stretched out his feet to their full length, put his hands in his trowsers pocket, held down his head, and clucked like a hen that is calling her chickens. I vow I could hardly help bustin’ out a larfin myself, for it warn’t a slow remark of hisn, and showed fun; in fact, I was sure at first he was a droll boy.
“Well, as I was a sayin’, sais I to Mr Parker, ‘Candidly, now, my only reason for partin’ with that are horse is, that I want to go away in a hurry out of Boston clear down to Charleston, South Carolina, and as I can’t take him with me, I prefer to sell him.”
“‘Well,’ sais he, ‘the beast is mine, and here is a cheque for your money.’
“‘Well,’ sais I, ‘Parker, take care of him, for you have got a fust-rate critter. He is all sorts of a horse, and one that is all I have told you, and more too, and no mistake.’
“Every man that buys a new horse, in a general way, is in a great hurry to try him. There is sumthin’ very takin’ in a new thing. A new watch, a new coat, no, I reckon it’s best to except a new spic and span coat (for it’s too glossy, and it don’t set easy, till it’s worn awhile, and perhaps I might say a new saddle, for it looks as if you warn’t used to ridin’, except when you went to Meetin’ of a Sabbaday, and kept it covered all the week, as a gall does her bonnet, to save it from the flies); but a new waggon, a new sleigh, a new house, and above all a new wife, has great attractions. Still you get tired of them all in a short while; you soon guess the hour instead of pullin’ out the watch for everlastin’. The waggon loses its novelty, and so does the sleigh, and the house is surpassed next month by a larger and finer one, and as you can’t carry it about to show folks, you soon find it is too expensive to invite them to come and admire it. But the wife; oh, Lord! In a general way, there ain’t more difference between a grub and a butterfly, than between a sweetheart and wife. Yet the grub and the butterfly is the same thing, only, differently rigged out, and so is the sweetheart and wife. Both critters crawl about the house, and ain’t very attractive to look at, and both turn out so fine and so painted when they go abroad, you don’t scarcely know them agin. Both, too, when they get out of doors, seem to have no other airthly object but to show themselves. They don’t go straight there and back again, as if there was an end in view, but they first flaunt to the right, and then to the left, and then everywhere in general, and yet nowhere in particular. To be seen and admired is the object of both. They are all finery, and that is so in their way they can neither sit, walk, nor stand conveniently in it. They are never happy, but when on the wing.”
“Oh, Lord!” said the doctor to himself, who seemed to think aloud; “I wonder if that is a picture or a caricature?”