- end_line
- 10820
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:47:57.726Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 10740
- text
- "Very good thing," said the boy, "I give it to all my customers who
trade seventy-five cents' worth; best present can be made them. Sell you
a money-belt, sir?" turning to the cosmopolitan.
"Excuse me, my fine fellow, but I never use that sort of thing; my money
I carry loose."
"Loose bait ain't bad," said the boy, "look a lie and find the truth;
don't care about a Counterfeit Detector, do ye? or is the wind East,
d'ye think?"
"Child," said the old man in some concern, "you mustn't sit up any
longer, it affects your mind; there, go away, go to bed."
"If I had some people's brains to lie on. I would," said the boy, "but
planks is hard, you know."
"Go, child--go, go!"
"Yes, child,--yes, yes," said the boy, with which roguish parody, by way
of congé, he scraped back his hard foot on the woven flowers of the
carpet, much as a mischievous steer in May scrapes back his horny hoof
in the pasture; and then with a flourish of his hat--which, like the
rest of his tatters, was, thanks to hard times, a belonging beyond his
years, though not beyond his experience, being a grown man's cast-off
beaver--turned, and with the air of a young Caffre, quitted the place.
"That's a strange boy," said the old man, looking after him. "I wonder
who's his mother; and whether she knows what late hours he keeps?"
"The probability is," observed the other, "that his mother does not
know. But if you remember, sir, you were saying something, when the boy
interrupted you with his door."
"So I was.--Let me see," unmindful of his purchases for the moment,
"what, now, was it? What was that I was saying? Do _you_ remember?"
"Not perfectly, sir; but, if I am not mistaken, it was something like
this: you hoped you did not distrust the creature; for that would imply
distrust of the Creator."
"Yes, that was something like it," mechanically and unintelligently
letting his eye fall now on his purchases.
"Pray, will you put your money in your belt to-night?"
"It's best, ain't it?" with a slight start. "Never too late to be
cautious. 'Beware of pick-pockets' is all over the boat."
"Yes, and it must have been the Son of Sirach, or some other morbid
cynic, who put them there. But that's not to the purpose. Since you are
minded to it, pray, sir, let me help you about the belt. I think that,
between us, we can make a secure thing of it."
"Oh no, no, no!" said the old man, not unperturbed, "no, no, I wouldn't
trouble you for the world," then, nervously folding up the belt, "and I
won't be so impolite as to do it for myself, before you, either. But,
now that I think of it," after a pause, carefully taking a little wad
from a remote corner of his vest pocket, "here are two bills they gave
me at St. Louis, yesterday. No doubt they are all right; but just to
pass time, I'll compare them with the Detector here. Blessed boy to make
me such a present. Public benefactor, that little boy!"
Laying the Detector square before him on the table, he then, with
something of the air of an officer bringing by the collar a brace of
culprits to the bar, placed the two bills opposite the Detector, upon
which, the examination began, lasting some time, prosecuted with no
small research and vigilance, the forefinger of the right hand proving
of lawyer-like efficacy in tracing out and pointing the evidence,
whichever way it might go.
After watching him a while, the cosmopolitan said in a formal voice,
"Well, what say you, Mr. Foreman; guilty, or not guilty?--Not guilty,
ain't it?"
"I don't know, I don't know," returned the old man, perplexed, "there's
so many marks of all sorts to go by, it makes it a kind of uncertain.
Here, now, is this bill," touching one, "it looks to be a three dollar
bill on the Vicksburgh Trust and Insurance Banking Company. Well, the
Detector says----"
- title
- Chunk 6