Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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“THOMAS FLINT, Executors." “This yer I must look at,” said he to Tom, for want of somebody else to talk to. “Ye see, I’m going to get up a prime gang to take down with ye, Tom; it’ll make it sociable and pleasant like,- good company will, ye know. We must drive right to Washington first and foremost, and then I’ll clap you into jail, while I does the business.” Tom received this agreeable intelligence quite meekly; simply wondering, in his own heart, how many of these doomed men had wives and children, and whether they would feel as he did about leaving them. It is to be confessed, too, that the naive, off-hand information that he was to be thrown into jail by no means produced an agreeable impression on a poor fellow who had always prided himself on a strictly honest and upright course of life. Yes, Tom, we must confess it, was rather proud of his honesty, poor fellow,- not having very much else to be proud of;- if he had belonged to some of the higher walks of society, he, perhaps, would never have been reduced to such straits. However, the day wore on, and the evening saw Haley and Tom comfortably accommodated in Washington,- the one in a tavern, and the other in a jail. About eleven o’clock the next day, a mixed throng was gathered around the court-house steps,- smoking, chewing, spitting, swearing, and conversing, accord- ing to their respective tastes and turns,- waiting for the auction to commence. The |