“Stop, gentlemen, stop!” cried the sheriff, who had watched the rising tide of good-humor, and now saw his chance to float in on it with spreading sails. “You`re running the price in the wrong direction down, not up. The law requires that he be sole to the highes` biddah, not the lowes. As loyal citizens, uphole the constitution of the commonwealth of Kentucky an` make me an offah; the man is really a great bargain. In the first place, he would cos` his ownah little or nothin`, because, as you see, he keeps himself in cigahs an cloes; then, his main article of diet is whisky a supply of which he always has on han`.
He don`t even need a bed, foh you know he sleeps jus` as well on any dooh step; noh a chair, foh he prefers to sit roun on the curbstones. Remembah, too, gentlemen, that ole King Sol`mon is a Virginian from the same neighborhood as Mr. Clay. Remembah that he is well educated, that he is an awful Whig, an` that he has smoked mo` of the stumps of Mr. Clay`s cigahs than any other man in existence. If you don`t b`lieve me, gentlemen, yondah goes Mr. Clay now; call him ovah an ask `im foh yo`se`ves.”
Right Forefinger
He paused, and pointed with his right forefinger towards Main Street, along which the spectators, with a sudden craning of necks, beheld the familiar figure of the passing statesman.
“But you don`t need anybody to tell you these fac`s, gentlemen,” he continued. “You merely need to be reminded that ole King Sol`mon is no ohdinary man. Mo`ovah he has a kine heaht, he nevah spoke a rough wohd to anybody in this worF, an` he is as proud as Tecumseh of his good name an` charactah. An, gentlemen,” he added, bridling with an air of mock gallantry and laying a hand on his heart, “if anythin` fu`thah is required in the way of a puffect encomium, we all know that there isn`t anothah man among us who cuts as wide a swath among the ladies.
The`foh, if you have any appreciation of virtue, any magnanimity of heaht; if you set a propah valuation upon the descendants of Virginia, that mothah of Presidents; if you believe in the pure laws of Kentucky as the pioneer bride of the Union; if you love America an` love the worl` make me a gen`rous, high-toned offah foh ole King Sol`mon!”
He ended his peroration amid a shout of laughter and applause, and, feeling satisfied that it was a good time for returning to a more praclical treatment of his subject, proceeded in a sincere tone:
“He can easily earn from one to two dollahs a day, an` from three to six hundred a yeah. There`s not anothah white man in town capable of doin` as much work. There`s not a niggah han` in the hemp factories with such muscles an` such a chest. Look at `em! An`, if you don`t h`lieve me, step fo`wahd and feel `em.
How much, then, is bid foh` im?” “One dollah!” said the owner of a hemp factory, who had walked forward and felt the vagrant`s arm, laughing, but coloring up also as the eyes of all were quickly turned upon him. In those days it was not; in unheard-of thing for the muscles of a human being to be thus examined when being sold into servitude to a new master.
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