“Ah! Colonel, you know little about these fellows. They would make black white. Go and take a ride, sir, return about four o'clock, and I will have everything as it ought to be.”
“I wish to heaven, Carson, I had your talents for business. Do you think my tenants attached to me?”
“Attached! sir, they are ready to cut your throat or mine, on the first convenient opportunity. You could not conceive their knavishness and dishonesty, except you happened to be an agent for a few years.
“So I have been told, and I am resolved to remove every dishonest tenant from my estate. Is there not a man, for instance, called Brady? He has sent me a long-winded petition here. What do you think of him?”
“Show me the petition, Colonel.”
“I cannot lay my hand on it just now; but you shall see it. In the mean time, what's your opinion of the fellow?”
“Brady! Why, I know the man particularly well. He is one of my favorites. What the deuce could the fellow petition about, though? I promised the other day to renew his lease for him.”
“Oh, then, if he be a favorite of yours, his petition may go to the devil, I suppose? Is the man honest?”
“Remarkably so; and has paid his rents very punctually. He is one of our safest tenants.”
“Do you know a man called Cullen?”