“Why, how—­you wouldn’t have me to be a mean-spirited fellow, who would live all for money, and not care how it comes.  I can’t, sir—­’tain’t my way, I assure you.  I do feel that I wasn’t born to live nowhere except in the South; and so I thought when I wrote Ichabod Bunce my last letter.  I told him every man on his own hook, now—­for, you see, I couldn’t stand his close-fisted contrivances no longer.  He wanted me to work round the ring like himself, but I was quite too up-and-down for that, and so I squared off from him soon as I could.  We never did agree when we were together, you see—­’cause naterally, being brothers and partners, he couldn’t shave me as he shaved other folks, and so, ’cause he couldn’t by nature and partnership come ’cute over me, he was always grumbling, and for every yard of prints, he’d make out to send two yards of grunt and growls, and that was too much, you know, even for a pedler to stand; so we cut loose, and now as the people say on the river—­every man paddle his own canoe.”

“And you are now alone in the way of trade, and this store which you are about to establish is entirely on your own account?”

“Guess it is; and so, you see, I must pull with single oar up stream, and shan’t quarrel with no friend that helps me now and then to send the boat ahead.”

“Rely upon us, Bunce.  You have done too much in my behalf to permit any of our family to forget your services.  We shall do all that we can toward giving you a fair start in the stream, and it will not be often that you shall require a helping-hand in paddling your canoe.”

“I know’d it, Master Colleton.  ’Tain’t in Carolina, nor in Georgy, nor Virginny, no—­nor down in Alabam, that a man will look long for provisions, and see none come.  That’s the people for me.  I guess I must ha’ been born by nature in the South, though I did see daylight in Connecticut.”

“No blarney, Bunce.  We know you—­what you are and what you are not!—­good and bad in fair proportions.  But what paper is that in your hand?”

“Oh, that?  That’s jest what I was going now to ax you about.  That’s my bill of particulars, you see, that I’m going to send on by the post, to Ichabod Bunce.  He’ll trade with me, now we’re off partnership, and be as civil as a lawyer jest afore court-time.  ’Cause, you see, he’ll be trying to come over me, and will throw as much dust in my eyes as he can.  But I guess he don’t catch me with mouth ajar.  I know his tricks, and he’ll find me up to them.”

“And what is it you require of me in this matter?”

“Oh, nothing, but jest to look over this list, and tell me how you ’spose the things will suit your part of the country.  You see I must try and larn how to please my customers, that is to be.  Now, you see, here’s, in the first place—­for they’re a great article now in the country, and turn out well in the way of sale—­here’s—­”