“Can’t I sell you this beautiful carpet? it is the pure Ingrain.”
“Ingrain,” says I, “so be you Ingrain as much.”
“I guess I know,” says he, “for I bought it of old Ingrain himself, I give the old man 12 shillin’s a yard for it, but seein’ it is you, and I like your looks so much, and it seems so much like home to me here, I will let you have it for 75 cents, cheaper than dirt to walk on, or boards.”
“I don’t want it,” says I, “I have got carpets enough.”
“Do you want it for 50 cents?” says he follerin’ me to the wood-box.
“No!” says I pretty sharp, for I don’t want to say no two times, to anybody.
“Would 25 cents be any indoosement to you?” says he, follerin’ me to the buttery door.
“No!” says I in my most energetic voice, and started for the suller with a plate of nut-cakes.
“Would 18 pence tempt you?” says he, hollerin’ down the suller way.
Then says I, comin’ up out of the suller with the old Smith blood bilin’ up in my veins, “Say another word to me about your old stair carpet if you dare; jest let me ketch you at it,” says I; “be I goin’ to have you traipse all over the house after me? be I goin’ to be made crazy as a loon by you?”
“Oh, Josiah Allen’s wife,” says Betsey, “do not be so hasty; of course the gentleman wishes to dispose of his goods, else why should he be in the mercanteel business?”
I didn’t say nothin’--gratitude still had holt of me--but I inwardly determined that not one word would I say if he cheated her out of her eye teeth.
Addressin’ his attention to Betsey, he took a pair of old fashioned ear rings out of his jacket pocket, and says he--
“I carry these in my pocket for fear I will be robbed of ’em. I hadn’t ought to carry ’em at all, a single man goin’ alone round the country as I do, but I have got a pistol, and let anybody tackle me for these ear rings if they dare to,” says he, lookin’ savage.
“Is thier intrinsick worth so large?” says Betsey,
“It haint so much thier neat value,” says he, “although that is enormous, as who owned ’em informally. Whose ears do you suppose these have had hold of?”
“How can I judge,” says Betsey with a winnin’ smile, “nevah havin’ seen them before.”
“Jest so,” says he, “you never was acquainted with ’em, but these very identical creeters used to belong to Miss Shakespeare. Yes, these belonged to Hamlet’s mother,” says he, lookin’ pensively upon them. “Bill bought ’em at old Stratford.”