“Do you think if I warnted to soft sawder you, I’d take the white-wash brush to you, and slobber it, on, as a nigger wench does to a board fence, or a kitchen wall to home, and put your eyes out with the lime? No, not I; but I could tickel you though, and have done it afore now, jist for practice, and you warn’t a bit the wiser. Lord, I’d take a camel’s-hair brush to you, knowin’ how skittish and ticklesome you are, and do it so it would feel good. I’d make you feel kinder pleasant, I know, and you’d jist bend your face over to it, and take it as kindly as a gall does a whisper, when your lips keep jist a brushin’ of the cheek while you are a talkin’. I wouldn’t go to shock you by a doin’ of it coarse; you are too quick, and too knowin’ for that. You should smell the otter o’ roses, and sniff, sniff it up your nostrils, and say to yourself, ‘How nice that is, ain’t it? Come, I like that, how sweet it stinks!’ I wouldn’t go for to dash scented water on your face, as a hired lady does on a winder to wash it, it would make you start back, take out your pocket-handkercher, and say, “Come, Mister Slick, no nonsense, if you please.” I’d do it delicate, I know my man: I’d use a light touch, a soft brush, and a smooth oily rouge.”
“Pardon me,” I said, “you overrate your own powers, and over-estimate my vanity. You are flattering yourself now, you can’t flatter me, for I detest it.”
“Creation, man,” said Mr. Slick, “I have done it now afore your face, these last five minutes, and you didn’t know it. Well, if that don’t bang the bush. It’s tarnation all over that. Tellin’ you, you was so knowin’, so shy if touched on the flanks; how difficult you was to take-in, bein’ a sensible, knowin’ man, what’s that but soft sawder? You swallowed it all. You took it off without winkin’, and opened your mouth as wide as a young blind robbin does for another worm, and then down went the Bunkum about making you a Secretary of State, which was rather a large bolus to swaller, without a draft; down, down it went, like a greased-wad through a smooth rifle bore; it did, upon my soul. Heavens! what a take in! what a splendid sleight-of-hand! I never did nothin’ better in all my born days. I hope I may be shot, if I did. Ha! ha! ha! ain’t it rich? Don’t it cut six inches on the rib of clear shear, that. Oh! it’s hansum, that’s a fact.”
“It’s no use to talk about it, Mr. Slick,” I replied; “I plead guilty. You took me in then. You touched a weak point. You insensibly flattered my vanity, by assenting to my self-sufficiency, in supposing I was exempt from that universal frailty of human nature; you “threw the Lavender” well.”
“I did put the leake into you, Squire, that’s a fact,” said he; “but let me alone, I know what I am about; let me talk on, my own way. Swaller what you like, spit out what is too strong for you; but don’t put a drag-chain on to me, when I am a doin’ tall talkin’, and set my wheels as fast as pine stumps. You know me, and I know you. You know my speed, and I know your bottom don’t throw back in the breetchin’ for nothin’ that way.”
“Well, as I was a-sayin’, I want you to see these great men, as they call ‘em. Let’s weigh ‘em, and measure ‘em, and handle ‘em, and then price ‘em, and see what their market valy is. Don’t consider ‘em as Tories, or Whigs, or Radicals; we hante got nothin’ to do with none o’ them; but consider ‘em as statesmen. It’s pot-luck with ‘em all; take your fork as the pot biles up, jab it in, and fetch a feller up, see whether he is beef, pork or mutton; partridge, rabbit or lobster; what his name, grain and flavour is, and how you like him. Treat ‘em indifferent, and treat ‘em independent.
“I don’t care a chaw o’ tobacky for the whole on ‘em; and none on ‘em care a pinch o’ snuff for you or any Hortentort of a colonist that ever was or ever will be. Lord love you! if you was to write like Scott, and map the human mind like Bacon, would it advance you a bit in prefarment? Not it. They have done enough for the colonists, they have turned ‘em upside down, and given ‘em responsible government? What more do the rascals want? Do they ask to be made equal to us? No, look at their social system, and their political system, and tell ‘em your opinion like a man. You have heard enough of their opinions of colonies, and suffered enough from their erroneous ones too. You have had Durham reports, and commissioners’ reports, and parliament reports till your stomach refuses any more on ‘em. And what are they? a bundle of mistakes and misconceptions, from beginnin’ to eend. They have travelled by stumblin’, and have measured every thing by the length of their knee, as they fell on the ground, as a milliner measures lace, by the bendin’ down of the forefinger—cuss ‘em! Turn the tables on ‘em. Report on them, measure them, but take care to keep your feet though, don’t be caught trippin’, don’t make no mistakes.
“Then we’ll go to the Lords’ House—I don’t mean to meetin’ house, though we must go there too, and hear Me Neil and Chalmers, and them sort o’ cattle; but I mean the house where the nobles meet, pick out the big bugs, and see what sort o’ stuff they are made of. Let’s take minister with us—he is a great judge of these things. I should like you to hear his opinion; he knows every thin’ a’most, though the ways of the world bother him a little sometimes; but for valyin’ a man, or stating principles, or talkin’ politics, there ain’t no man equal to him, hardly. He is a book, that’s a fact; it’s all there what you want; all you’ve got to do is to cut the leaves. Name the word in the index, he’ll turn to the page, and give you day, date, and fact, for it. There is no mistake in him.
“That cussed provokin’ visit of yours to Scotland will shove them things into the next book, I’m afeered. But it don’t signify nothin’; you can’t cram all into one, and we hante only broke the crust yet, and p’rhaps it’s as well to look afore you leap too, or you might make as big a fool of yourself, as some of the Britishers have a-writin’ about us and the provinces. Oh yes, it’s a great advantage havin’ minister with you. He’ll fell the big stiff trees for you; and I’m the boy for the saplin’s, I’ve got the eye and the stroke for them. They spring so confoundedly under the axe, does second growth and underwood, it’s dangerous work, but I’ve got the sleight o’ hand for that, and we’ll make a clean field of it.
“Then come and survey; take your compass and chain to the ground and measure, and lay that off—branch and bark the spars for snakin’ off the ground; cord up the fire-wood, tie up the hoop poles, and then burn off the trash and rubbish. Do it workman-like. Take your time to it as if you was workin’ by the day. Don’t hurry, like job work; don’t slobber it over, and leave half-burnt trees and logs strewed about the surface, but make smack smooth work. Do that, Squire, do it well, and that is, only half as good as you can, if you choose, and then—”