weight; he’d cut three inches on the rib—­he must have a proper sight of lard, that chap?  No, says I, don’t call ’em great men, for there aint a great man in the country, that’s a fact; there aint one that desarves the name; folks will only larf at you if you talk that way.  There may be some rich men, and I believe there be, and its a pity there warn’t more on ’em, and a still greater pity they have so little spirit or enterprise among ’em, but a country is none the worse of having rich men in it, you may depend.  Great folks, well come, that’s a good joke—­that bangs the bush.  No, my friend, says I, the meat that’s at the top of the barrel, is sometimes not so good as that that’s a little grain lower down; the upper and lower eends are plaguy apt to have a little taint in ’em, but the middle is always good.

Well, says the Blue Nose, perhaps they beant great men, exactly in that sense, but they are great men compared to us poor folks; and they eat up all the revenue, there’s nothin left for roads and bridges, they want to ruin the country, that’s a fact.  Want to ruin your granny, says I, (for it raised my dander to hear the critter talk such nonsense.) I did hear of one chap, says I, that sot fire to his own house once, up to Squantum, but the cunnin rascal insured it first; now how can your great folks ruin the country without ruinin themselves, unless they have insured the Province?  Our folks will insure all creation for half nothin, but I never heerd tell of a country being insured agin rich men.  Now if you ever go to Wall Street to get such a policy, leave the door open behind you, that’s all; or they’ll grab right hold of you, shave your head and blister it, clap a straight jacket on you, and whip you right into a mad house, afore you can say Jack Robinson.  No, your great men are nothin but rich men, and I can tell you for your comfort, there’s nothin to hinder you from bein rich too, if you will take the same means as they did.  They were once all as poor folks as you be, or their fathers afore them; for I know their whole breed, seed and generation, and they would’nt thank you to tell them that you knew their fathers and grand fathers, I tell you.  If ever you want the loan of a hundred pounds from any of them, keep dark about that —­see as far ahead as you please, but it tante always pleasant to have folks see too far back.  Perhaps they be a little proud or so, but that’s nateral; all folks that grow up right off, like a mushroom in one night, are apt to think no small beer of themselves.  A cabbage has plaguy large leaves to the bottom, and spreads them out as wide as an old woman’s petticoats, to hide the ground it sprung from, and conceal its extraction, but what’s that to you?  If they get too large salaries, dock ’em down at once, but don’t keep talkin about it for everlastinly.  If you have too many sarvents, pay some on ’em off, or when they quit your sarvice don’t hire others in their room, that’s all; but you miss your mark when you keep firin away the whole blessed time that way.