“I thought as much,” said Mr. Slick. “I doubt if any Britisher ever did or ever will see it. Well, Sir, in South Carolina, there is a man called Josiah Wormwood; I am ashamed to say he is a Connecticut man. For a considerable of a spell, he was a strollin’ preacher, but it didn’t pay in the long run. There is so much competition in that line in our country, that he consaited the business was overdone, and he opened a Lyceum to Charleston South Car, for boxin’, wrestlin’ and other purlite British accomplishments; and a most a beautiful sparrer he is, too; I don’t know as I ever see a more scientific gentleman than he is, in that line. Lately, he has halfed on to it the art of gougin’ or ‘monokolisin,’ as he calls it, to sound grand; and if it weren’t so dreadful in its consequences, it sartinly is amost allurin’ thing, is gougin’. The sleight-of-hand is beautiful. All other sleights we know are tricks; but this is reality; there is the eye of your adversary in your hand; there is no mistake. It’s the real thing. You feel you have him; that you have set your mark on him, and that you have took your satisfaction. The throb of delight felt by a ‘monokolister’ is beyond all conception.”
“Oh heavens!” said the traveller, “Oh horror of horrors! I never heard any thing so dreadful. Your manner of telling it, too, adds to its terrors. You appear to view the practice with a proper Christian disgust; and yet you talk like an amateur. Oh, the thing is sickening.”
“It is, indeed,” said Mr. Slick, “particularly to him that loses his peeper. But the dexterity, you know, is another thing. It is very scientific. He has two niggers, has Squire Wormwood, who teach the wrastlin’ and gouge-sparrin’; but practisin’ for the eye is done for punishment of runaways. He has plenty of subjects. All the planters send their fugitive niggers there to be practised on for an eye. The scholars ain’t allowed to take more than one eye out of them; if they do, they have to pay for the nigger; for he is no sort o’ good after, for nothin’ but to pick oakum. I could go through the form, and give you the cries to the life, but I won’t; it is too horrid; it really is too dreadful.”
“Oh do, I beg of you,” said the traveller.
“I cannot, indeed; it is too shocking. It will disgust you.”
“Oh, not at all,” said Turkey, “when I know it is simulated, and not real, it is another thing.”
“I cannot, indeed,” said Mr. Slick. “It would shock your philanthropic soul, and set your very teeth of humanity on edge. But have you ever seen—the Black Stole?”
“No.”
“Never seen the Black Stole?”
“No, never.”