I don’t pretend to say the galls don’t nullify the rule, sometimes at intermission and arter hours, but when they do, if they don’t let go, then its a pity.  You have heerd a school come out, of little boys, Lord its no touch to it; or a flock of geese at it, they are no more a match for em than a pony is for a coach-horse.  But when they are at work, all’s as still as sleep and no snoring.  I guess we have a right to brag o’ that invention—­we trained the dear critters, so they don’t think of striking the minutes and seconds no longer.

Now the folks of Halifax take it all out in talking—­ they talk of steamboats, whalers and rail roads—­but they all end where they begin—­in talk.  I don’t think I’d be out in my latitude, if I was to say they beat the women kind at that.  One feller says, I talk of going to England—­another says, I talk of going to the Country—­ while a third says, I talk of going to sleep.  If we happen to speak of such things, we say:  ’I’m right off down East; or I’m away off South,’ and away we go, jist like a streak of lightning.

When we want folks to talk, we pay ’em for it, such as ministers, lawyers, and members of congress:  but then we expect the use of their tongues, and not their hands; and when we pay folks to work, we expect the use of their hands, and not their tongues.  I guess work don’t come kind o’ natural to the people of this Province, no more than it does to a full bred horse.  I expect they think they have a little too much blood in ’em for work, for they are near about as proud as they are lazy.

Now the bees know how to sarve out such chaps, for they have their drones too.  Well they reckon its no fun, a making honey all summer, for these idle critters to eat all winter—­so they give ’em Lynch Law.  They have a regular built mob of citizens, and string up the drones like the Vixburg gamblers.  Their maxim is, and not a bad one neither I guess, ‘no work, no honey.’

No.  IV

Conversations at the River Philip.

It was late before we arrived at Pugnose’s Inn—­the evening was cool, and a fire was cheering and comfortable.  Mr. Slick declined any share in the bottle of wine, he said he was dyspeptic; and a glass or two soon convinced me, that it was likely to produce in me something worse than dyspepsy.  It was speedily removed and we drew up to the fire.  Taking a small penknife from his pocket, he began to whittle a thin piece of dry wood, which lay on the hearth; and, after musing some time said, I guess you’ve never been in the States.  I replied that I had not, but that before I returned to England I proposed visiting that country.  There, said he, you’ll see the great Daniel Webster—­he’s a great man, I tell you; King William, number 4, I guess, would be no match for him as an orator—­he’d talk him out of sight in half an hour.  If he was in your house of Commons, I reckon he’d make