' 'If I throw
in the odds and ends, it will be one hundred and twenty-five thousand,'
said the New York man. 'That's all right,' said the California man, 'and
my family will arrive, with their clothes, on the train that gets here
at 6.20 this afternoon; so if your family can get out of the house
before that time, I'm ready to pay the money, cash down.' 'All right,'
said the New York man, 'I'll see that they do it.' And at ten minutes
after six the New York family went out with their clothes to a hotel,
and at twenty minutes of seven the California family came to the house
with their clothes, and found everything all ready for 'em, the servants
havin' agreed to stay at California wages.
"Now, then," continued Captain Jabez, "I don't want to hurt nobody's
feelin's, and I wouldn't say one word that would make the smallest
infant think less of itself than it did afore I spoke, but it does
strike me that that there proposition of yours is a good deal like the
California man's offer to the New York man."
"Well," said I, "that turned out very well. Each got what he wanted."
"Yes," replied Captain Jabez, "but this ain't New York city. No, sir,
not by a long shot. I am just as willin' to accommodate a fellow-man, or
a fellow-woman, for that matter, as any reasonable person is; but if the
President of the United States, and Queen Victoria, and the prophet
Isaiah was to come to me of a Saturday night, after I'd just got home
from a week's work, and ask me to start straight off and take them to
Sanpritchit, I'd tell 'em that I'd be glad to oblige 'em, but it
couldn't be done: and that's what I say to ye, sir,--neither more nor
less.
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