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III
John K. Lummox lived for a week at the Turkey Buzzard Hotel exclusively on doughnuts and innuendoes. He was informed by Mr. Borem`s clerk--whose place he was to fill--that he wouldn`t be able to stand it, and thus received the character of his employer from his last employee. "I suppose," said Dan`l Borem, chuckling, "that he said I was a old skinflint, good only at a hoss trade, uneddicated, ignorant, and unable to keep accounts, and an oppressor o` the widder and orphan. Allowed that my cute sayin`s was a kind o` ten-cent parody o` them proverbs in Poor Richard`s Almanack!" "Omitting a few expletives, he certainly did," returned Lummox with great delicacy. "He allowed to me," said Dan`l thoughtfully, "that YOU was a poor critter that hadn`t a single reason to show for livin`: that the fool-killer had bin shadderin` you from your birth, and that you hadn`t paid a cent profit on your father`s original investment in ye, nor on the assessments he`d paid on ye ever since. He seems to be a cute feller arter all, and I`m rather sorry he`s leavin`." "I am quite willing to abandon my position in his favor, now," said Lummox with alacrity. "No," said Dan`l, rubbing his chin argumentatively; "the only way for us to do is to circumvent him like in a hoss trade--with suthin` unexpected. When he thinks you`re goin` to sleep in the shafts you`ll run away; and when he think`s I`m vicious I`ll let a woman or a child drive me."
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