“So there is the first division of my subject. Now for the second. But don’t go off at half-cock, narvous like. I am not like the black preacher that had forty-eleven divisions. I have only a few more remarks to make. Well, I have observed that in editin’ my last Journal, you struck out some scores I made under certain passages and maxims, because you thought they were not needed, or looked vain. I know it looks consaited as well as you do, but I know their use also. I have my own views of things. Let them also be as I have made them. They warn’t put there for nothin’. I have a case in pint that runs on all fours with it, as brother Josiah the lawyer used to say, and if there was anythin’ wantin’ to prove that lawyers were not strait up and down in their dealings, that expression would show it.
“I was to court wunst to Slickville, when he was addressin’ of the jury. The main points of his argument he went over and over again, till I got so tired I took up my hat and walked out. Sais I to him, arter court was prorogued and members gone home,
“‘Sy,’ sais I, ‘why on airth did you repeat them arguments so often? It was everlastin’ yarny.’
“‘Sam,’ sais he, and he gave his head a jupe, and pressed his lips close, like a lemon-squeezer, the way lawyers always do when they want to look wise, ‘when I can’t drive a nail with one blow, I hammer away till I do git it in. Some folks’ heads is as hard as hackmetacks—you have to bore a hole in it first to put the nail in, to keep it from bendin’, and then it is as touch as a bargain if you can send it home and clinch it.’
“Now maxims and saws are the sumtotalisation of a thing. Folks won’t always add up the columns to see if they are footed right, but show ’em the amount and result, and that they are able to remember and carry away with them. No—no, put them Italics in, as I have always done. They show there is truth at the bottom. I like it, for it’s what I call sense on the short-cards—do you take? Recollect always, you are not Sam Slick, and I am not you. The greatest compliment a Britisher would think he could pay you, would be to say, ‘I should have taken you for an Englishman.’ Now the greatest compliment he can pay me is to take me for a Connecticut Clockmaker, who hoed his way up to the Embassy to London, and preserved so much of his nationality, after being so long among foreigners. Let the Italics be—you ain’t answerable for them, nor my boastin’ neither. When you write a book of your own, leave out both if you like, but as you only edit my Journal, if you leave them out, just go one step further, and leave out Sam Slick also.
“There is another thing, Squire, upon which I must make a remark, if you will bear with me. In my last work you made me speak purer English than you found in my Journal, and altered my phraseology, or rather my dialect. Now, my dear Nippent—”
“Nippent!” said I, “what is that?”
“The most endearing word in the Indian language for friend,” he said, “only it’s more comprehensive, including ally, foster-brother, life-preserver, shaft-horse, and everything that has a human tie in it.”
“Ah, Slick,” I said, “how skilled you are in soft sawder! You laid that trap for me on purpose, so that I might ask the question, to enable you to throw the lavender to me.”
“Dod drot that word soft sawder,” said he, “I wish I had never invented it. I can’t say a civil thing to anybody now, but he looks arch, as if he had found a mare’s nest, and says, ‘Ah, Slick! none of your soft sawder now.’ But, my dear nippent, by that means you destroy my individuality. I cease to be the genuine itinerant Yankee Clockmaker, and merge into a very bad imitation. You know I am a natural character, and always was, and act and talk naturally, and as far as I can judge, the little alteration my sojourn in London with the American embassy has made in my pronunciation and provincialism, is by no means an improvement to my Journal. The moment you take away my native dialect, I become the representative of another class, and cease to be your old friend ‘Sam Slick, the Clockmaker.’ Bear with me this once, Squire, and don’t tear your shirt, I beseech you, for in all probability it will be the last time it will be in your power to subject me to the ordeal of criticism, and I should like, I confess, to remain true to myself and to Nature to the last.