“I guess you’re in a little bit of a small hurry, Master Colleton, ’cause, you see, you’ve some reason to be so.  You hain’t had so easy a spell on it, no how, and I don’t wonder as how you’re no little airnest to get off.  Well, you won’t have to wait for me.  I’ve jest got through mending my little go-cart—­though, to be sure, it don’t look, no how, like the thing it was.  The rigilators made awful sad work of the box and body, and, what with patching and piecing, there’s no two eends on it alike.”

“Well, you’re ready, however, and we shall have no difficulty at the last hour?”

“None to speak on.  Jared Bunce aint the chap for burning daylight; and whenever you’re ready to say, ‘Go,’ he’s gone.  But, I say, Master Ralph, there’s one little matter I’d like to look at.”

“What’s that?  Be quick, now, for I’ve much to see to.”

“Only a minute.  Here, you see, is a letter I’ve jest writ to my brother, Ichabod Bunce, down to Meriden.  He’s a ’cute chap, and quite a Yankee, now, I tell you; and as I knows all his ways, I’ve got to keep a sharp look-out to see he don’t come over me.  Ah, Master Ralph, it’s a hard thing to say one’s own flesh and blood aint the thing, but the truth’s the truth to be sure, and, though it does hurt in the telling, that’s no reason it shouldn’t be told.”

“Certainly not!”

“Well, as I say, Ichabod Bunce is as close and ’cute in his dealings as any man in all Connecticut, and that’s no little to say, I’m sartin.  He’s got the trick, if anybody’s got it, of knowing how to make your pocket his, and squaring all things coming in by double multiplication.  If he puts a shilling down, it’s sure to stick to another; and if he picks one up, it never comes by itself—­there’s always sure to be two on ’em.”

“A choice faculty for a tradesman.”

“You’ve said it.”

“Just the man for business, I take it.”

“Jest so; you’re right there, Master Colleton—­there’s no mistake about that.  Well, as I tell’d you now, though he’s my own brother, I have to keep a raal sharp look out over him in all our dealings.  If he says two and two makes four, I sets to calkilate, for when he says so, I’m sure there’s something wrong in the calkilation; and tho’ to be sure I do know, when the thing stands by itself, that two and two does make four; yet, somehow, whenever he says it, I begin to think it not altogether so sartain.  Ah, he’s a main hand for trade, and there’s no knowing when he’ll come over you.”

“But, Bunce, without making morals a party to this question, as you are in copartnership with your brother, you should rather rejoice that he possesses so happy a faculty; it certainly should not be a matter of regret with you.”