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- 823
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 740
- text
- question of a bystander, umbrella in hand; a middle-aged person, a
country merchant apparently, whose natural good-feeling had been made at
least cautious by the unnatural ill-feeling of the discharged
custom-house officer.
"Where are we to find them?" half-rebukefully echoed the young Episcopal
clergymen. "I will go find one to begin with," he quickly added, and,
with kind haste suiting the action to the word, away he went.
"Wild goose chase!" croaked he with the wooden leg, now again drawing
nigh. "Don't believe there's a soul of them aboard. Did ever beggar have
such heaps of fine friends? He can walk fast enough when he tries, a
good deal faster than I; but he can lie yet faster. He's some white
operator, betwisted and painted up for a decoy. He and his friends are
all humbugs."
"Have you no charity, friend?" here in self-subdued tones, singularly
contrasted with his unsubdued person, said a Methodist minister,
advancing; a tall, muscular, martial-looking man, a Tennessean by birth,
who in the Mexican war had been volunteer chaplain to a volunteer
rifle-regiment.
"Charity is one thing, and truth is another," rejoined he with the
wooden leg: "he's a rascal, I say."
"But why not, friend, put as charitable a construction as one can upon
the poor fellow?" said the soldierlike Methodist, with increased
difficulty maintaining a pacific demeanor towards one whose own asperity
seemed so little to entitle him to it: "he looks honest, don't he?"
"Looks are one thing, and facts are another," snapped out the other
perversely; "and as to your constructions, what construction can you put
upon a rascal, but that a rascal he is?"
"Be not such a Canada thistle," urged the Methodist, with something less
of patience than before. "Charity, man, charity."
"To where it belongs with your charity! to heaven with it!" again
snapped out the other, diabolically; "here on earth, true charity dotes,
and false charity plots. Who betrays a fool with a kiss, the charitable
fool has the charity to believe is in love with him, and the charitable
knave on the stand gives charitable testimony for his comrade in the
box."
"Surely, friend," returned the noble Methodist, with much ado
restraining his still waxing indignation--"surely, to say the least, you
forget yourself. Apply it home," he continued, with exterior calmness
tremulous with inkept emotion. "Suppose, now, I should exercise no
charity in judging your own character by the words which have fallen
from you; what sort of vile, pitiless man do you think I would take you
for?"
"No doubt"--with a grin--"some such pitiless man as has lost his piety
in much the same way that the jockey loses his honesty."
"And how is that, friend?" still conscientiously holding back the old
Adam in him, as if it were a mastiff he had by the neck.
"Never you mind how it is"--with a sneer; "but all horses aint virtuous,
no more than all men kind; and come close to, and much dealt with, some
things are catching. When you find me a virtuous jockey, I will find you
a benevolent wise man."
"Some insinuation there."
"More fool you that are puzzled by it."
"Reprobate!" cried the other, his indignation now at last almost boiling
over; "godless reprobate! if charity did not restrain me, I could call
you by names you deserve."
"Could you, indeed?" with an insolent sneer.
"Yea, and teach you charity on the spot," cried the goaded Methodist,
suddenly catching this exasperating opponent by his shabby coat-collar,
and shaking him till his timber-toe clattered on the deck like a
nine-pin. "You took me for a non-combatant did you?--thought, seedy
coward that you are, that you could abuse a Christian with impunity. You
find your mistake"--with another hearty shake.
"Well said and better done, church militant!" cried a voice.
"The white cravat against the world!" cried another.
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