"I'll sue you for damages." "You will ?" "Yes; I'll law you to death, sooner than be defrauded out of my property in this manner; so, down with the dust, and no more grumbling about it.” The bewildered and crest-fallen proprietor, perceiving from Jonathan's tone and manner, that all remonstrance would be in vain, and that he was irrevocably fixed in his determination to extract twenty-five cents from his already exhausted coffers, at length slowly and reluctantly put into his hand the bit of silver coin representing that amount of the circulating medium. Jonathan, we blush to say, took the money, and what is more, he put it into his pocket; and, what is moreover, he positively buttoned it up, as if to "make assurance double sure," and to guard it against the possibility of escape. "Mister," said he, after he had gone coolly through the ceremony, looking all the while as innocently as a man who has just performed a virtuous action; "mister, I say, you must not think that I set any more value on the insignificant trifle you have paid me, than any other gentleman: a twenty-five cent piece, after all, is hardly worth disputing aboutit's only a quarter of a dollar—which any industrious person may earn in half an hour, if he chooses-the merest trifle in the world—a poor little scoundrel of a coin, that I would not, under other circumstances, touch with a pair of tongs-and which I would scorn to take even now-if it were not for the principle of the thing! To show you, however, that I entertain a high respect for the "People's Line," that I wish old cockalorum to the devil, and that I do not harbour the slightest ill-will toward you for so unjustifiably withholding my legal demands, the next time I come this way again, I will unquestionably give your stage the preference-unless the "Flying Dutchman" holds out greater inducements than you do, in which case, I rather calculate, I shall feel myself in duty bound to encourage him!" Since the veritable circumstances here related, the Jamaica rail-road has entirely superseded the necessity of both the "Monopoly" and the "People's Line" of stages, and their publick-spirited proprietors, after making a prodigious noise in the world, have retired under the shade of their laurels, deep into the recesses of private life. There we shall leave them, to enjoy whatever satisfaction may be gathered from the proud consolation of having expended every farthing they were worth in the world, for the gratification of a publick that has long ago forgotten they ever existed! |