"Me, Jed-diah Suggs, that's
been in the Lord's sarvice these twenty years,--_me_ bet, you nasty,
sassy, triflin', ugly--"
"I didn't go to say _that_, daddy; that warn't what I meant adzactly. I
went to say that ef you'd let me off from this her maulin' you owe me,
and _give me_ 'Bunch,' if I cut Jack, I'd _give you_ all this here
silver, ef I didn't,--that's all. To be sure, I allers knowed _you_
wouldn't _bet_."
Old Mr. Suggs ascertained the exact amount of the silver which his son
handed him, in an old leathern pouch, for inspection. He also, mentally,
compared that sum with an imaginary one, the supposed value of a certain
Indian pony, called "Bunch," which he had bought for his "old woman's"
Sunday riding, and which had sent the old lady into a fence corner the
first and only time she ever mounted him. As he weighed the pouch of
silver in his hand, Mr. Suggs also endeavored to analyze the character
of the transaction proposed by Simon. "It sartinly _can't_ be nothin'
but _givin_', no way it kin be twisted," he murmured to himself. "I
_know_ he can't do it, so there's no resk. What makes bettin'? The resk.
It's a one-sided business, and I'll jist let him give me all his money,
and that'll put all his wild sportin' notions out of his head."
"Will you stand it, daddy?" asked Simon, by way of waking the old man
up.
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