“It is how a man votes,” said the major, adding a nod of satisfaction, “not what he gets for his vote.  That’s his business, and except heaven, no one has a right to interfere.  Here, take these, know how much I esteem you, and remember when you drink your cider out of them that I am your friend.”  Here the major took two tin pints from his wagon, and having patted the fishmonger upon the shoulder, presented them to him, with a speech very like that made by a Mayor of New York, who, having dined with his board of aldermen, holds it incumbent upon him to bestow praises the cunning rascals know are meant for a jest.  This done, the major drew forth his flask, saying that it would be no more than good manners to christen the pints.  The fishmonger answered that he had no objection, the weather being very oppressive.  A stout draft was now poured into each cup, and having myself declined, compliments and bows, such as the fishmonger had never before received, were exchanged, and the whiskey drank with great apparent satisfaction.

“As the sun is warm, and my profits to day have not amounted to much,” said the fishmonger, with an air of stupidity that by no means pleased the major, “I must hurry these ere fish through!” The major expected a different return for his generosity, and reminded his friend that he had not yet showed him a sample of his wares.  At the word, the other mounted his little box of a wagon, and in a trice laid three cod and two flabby haddock upon the lid, declaring they were as fresh and bright as a new-coined quarter.  And though at the most rapid pace his horse could travel, he was more than six hours from the nearest sea-shore, he was ready to swear by the hair of his head, of which he had but little, they were only two hours caught.  “Five cents a pound for the cod, and four for the haddock!” ejaculated the fishmonger, raising a haddock by the gills, as if to assert some near point to the notch it would bring down on the steelyard.  “Well, to you, here, have the cod for four and a half; that’s offsettin’ your good turn, and I make it a point never to be out of the way with a fellow trader.”  Saying this, he hung a codfish to the hook of his steelyards, and finding seven pounds marked, said thirty cents would cover the cost, that being a cent and a half more off.  Generosity, the Major saw, was not bait that tempted the fishmonger to reciprocity.  “I should like two of them at the price you name; but as paying cash is not in my line, perhaps we can trade, somehow?  By my military reputation, I never let a chance to trade slip.  Yes, by my buttons, I made a good thing of it when at the head of my regiment in Mexico.”  This the major said by way of softening the fishmonger’s generosity; but that honest-minded individual replied in the following laconic manner:  “Bin in Mexaki, eh?  Darn’d if I’d like to bin there.”