And this is how John Lummox came to offer himself as a clerk to
Dan'l Borem. The ways of Providence are indeed strange, yet those
of the novelist are only occasionally novel.
III
John K. Lummox lived for a week at the Turkey Buzzard Hotel
exclusively on doughnuts and innuendoes. He was informed by Mr.
Borem's clerk--whose place he was to fill--that he wouldn't be able
to stand it, and thus received the character of his employer from
his last employee.
"I suppose," said Dan'l Borem, chuckling, "that he said I was a old
skinflint, good only at a hoss trade, uneddicated, ignorant, and
unable to keep accounts, and an oppressor o' the widder and orphan.
Allowed that my cute sayin's was a kind o' ten-cent parody o' them
proverbs in Poor Richard's Almanack!"
"Omitting a few expletives, he certainly did," returned Lummox with
great delicacy.
"He allowed to me," said Dan'l thoughtfully, "that YOU was a poor
critter that hadn't a single reason to show for livin': that the
fool-killer had bin shadderin' you from your birth, and that you
hadn't paid a cent profit on your father's original investment in
ye, nor on the assessments he'd paid on ye ever since. He seems to
be a cute feller arter all, and I'm rather sorry he's leavin'."
"I am quite willing to abandon my position in his favor, now," said
Lummox with alacrity.
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