So I started to go again, but before I had reached the door he says, says he:
"But stop, mister, you didn't pay me for the biscuits."
"What!" says I, "do you mean to impose upon me? Do you think I am going to pay you for the biscuits, and let you keep them, too? Ain't they there now on your shelf? What more do you want? I guess, sir, you don't whittle me in that way."
So I turned about and marched off and left the feller staring and scratching his head as tho' he was struck with a dunderment.
Howsomever, I didn't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it wasn't so easy a matter to pull my eye-teeth out; so I called in next day and paid him two cents.
William Cullen Bryant
THE MOSQUITO
Fair insect! that with threadlike legs spread out
And blood-extracting bill and filmy wing,
Dost murmur, as thou slowly sail'st about,
In pitiless ears, full many a plaintive thing,
And tell how little our large veins should bleed,
Would we but yield them to thy bitter need?
Unwillingly I own, and, what is worse,
Full angrily men hearken to thy plaint;
Thou gettest many a brush and many a curse,
For saying thou art gaunt and starved and faint.
Even the old beggar, while he asks for food,
Would kill thee, hapless stranger, if he could.
I call thee stranger, for the town, I ween,
Has not the honor of so proud a birth-
Thou com'st from Jersey meadows, fresh and green,
The offspring of the gods, though born on earth;
For Titan was thy sire, and fair was she,
The ocean nymph that nursed thy infancy.