“So I goes up stairs, as slowly as I cleverly could, jist liftin’ one foot arter another as if it had a fifty-six tied to it, on pupus to spend time; lit a cigar, opened the window nearest the rooks, and smoked, but oh the rain killed all the smoke in a minite; it didn’t even make one on ‘em sneeze. ‘Dull musick this, Sam,’ sais I, ‘ain’t it? Tell you what: I’ll put on my ile-skin, take an umbreller and go and talk to the stable helps, for I feel as lonely as a catamount, and as dull as a bachelor beaver. So I trampousses off to the stable, and says I to the head man, ‘A smart little hoss that,’ sais I, ‘you are a cleaning of: he looks like a first chop article that.’
“‘Y mae’,’ sais he.
“‘Hullo,’ sais I, ‘what in natur’ is this? Is it him that can’t speak English, or me that can’t onderstand? for one on us is a fool, that’s sartain. I’ll try him agin.
“So I sais to him, ‘He looks,’ sais I, ‘as if he’d trot a considerable good stick, that horse,’ sais I, ‘I guess he is a goer.’
“Y’ mae, ye un trotter da,’ sais he.
“‘Creation!’ sais I, ‘if this don’t beat gineral trainin’. I have heerd in my time, broken French, broken Scotch, broken Irish, broken Yankee, broken Nigger, and broken Indgin; but I have hearn two pure genewine languages to-day, and no mistake, rael rook, and rael Britton, and I don’t exactly know which I like wus. It’s no use to stand talkin’ to this critter. Good-bye,’ sais I.
“Now what do you think he said? Why, you would suppose he’d say good-bye too, wouldn’t you? Well, he didn’t, nor nothin’ like it, but he jist ups, and sais, ‘Forwelloaugh,’ he did, upon my soul. I never felt so stumpt afore in all my life. Sais I, ‘Friend, here is half a dollar for you; it arn’t often I’m brought to a dead stare, and when I am, I am willin’ to pay for it.’
“There’s two languages, Squire, that’s univarsal: the language of love, and the language of money; the galls onderstand the one, and the men onderstand the other, all the wide world over, from Canton to Niagara. I no sooner showed him the half dollar, than it walked into his pocket, a plaguy sight quicker than it will walk out, I guess.
“Sais I, ‘Friend, you’ve taken the consait out of me properly. Captain Hall said there warn’t a man, woman, or child, in the whole of the thirteen united univarsal worlds of our great Republic, that could speak pure English, and I was a goin’ to kick him for it; but he is right, arter all. There ain’t one livin’ soul on us can; I don’t believe they ever as much as heerd it, for I never did, till this blessed day, and there are few things I haven’t either see’d, or heern tell of. Yes, we can’t speak English, do you take?’ ‘Dim comrag,’ sais he, which in Yankee, means, “that’s no English,” and he stood, looked puzzled, and scratched his head, rael hansum, ‘Dim comrag,’ sais he.
“Well, it made me larf spiteful. I felt kinder wicked, and as I had a hat on, and I couldn’t scratch my head, I stood jist like him, clown fashion, with my eyes wanderin’ and my mouth wide open, and put my hand behind me, and scratched there; and I stared, and looked puzzled too, and made the same identical vacant face he did, and repeated arter him slowly, with another scratch, mocking him like, ‘Dim comrag.’