“And he stooped down and filled it with water, and took a mouthful, and then makin’ a face like a frog afore he goes to sing, and swellin’ his cheeks out like a Scotch bagpiper, he spit it all out. Sais he, ‘That is so warm, it makes me sick; and as I ain’t otherwise well, from the celestial exhaustion of a protracted meetin’, I believe I will take a little drop, as medicine.’
“Confound him! if he’d a said he’d only leave a little drop, it would a been more like the thing; for he e’en a’most emptied the whole into the cup, and drank it off clean, without winkin’.
“‘It’s a “very refreshin’ time,”’ sais I, ‘ain’t’ it?’ But he didn’t make no answer. Sais I, ‘that’s a likely beast of yourn, Elder,’ and I opened her mouth, and took a look at her, and no easy matter nother, I tell you, for she held on like a bear trap, with her jaws. “‘She won’t suit you,’ sais he, “with a smile, ‘Mr. Slick.’
“‘I guess not,’ sais I.
“‘But she’ll jist suit the French,’ sais he.
“‘It’s lucky she don’t speak French then,’ sais I, ‘or they’d soon find her tongue was too big for her mouth. That critter will never see five-and-twenty, and I’m a thinkin’, she’s thirty year old, if she is a day.’
“‘I was a thinkin’, said he, with a sly look out o’ the corner of his eye, as if her age warn’t no secret to him. ‘I was a thinkin’ it’s time to put her off, and she’ll jist suit the French. They hante much for hosses to do, in a giniral way, but to ride about; and you won’t say nothin’ about her age, will you? it might endamnify a sale.’
“‘Not I,’ sais I, ‘I skin my own foxes, and let other folks skin their’n. I have enough to do to mind my own business, without interferin’ with other people’s.’
“‘She’ll jist suit the French,’ sais he; ‘they don’t know nothin’ about hosses, or any thing else. They are a simple people, and always will be, for their priests keep ‘em in ignorance. It’s an awful thing to see them kept in the outer porch of darkness that way, ain’t it?’
“‘I guess you’ll put a new pane o’ glass in their porch,’ sais I, ‘and help some o’ them to see better; for whoever gets that mare, will have his eyes opened, sooner nor he bargains for, I know.’