If
you'd just see Bob Osmand doe it up, you'd think his face was made
for a methodist deacon in camp meeting-time. The way he comes it
when he wants to prove a free nigger's a runaway, would beat all the
disciples of Blackstone between here and old Kentuck. And then,
Bob's any sort of a gentleman, what you don't get in town every day,
and wouldn't make a bad senator, if he'd bin in Congress when the
compromise was settled upon,--'cos he can reason right into just
nothin' at all. Ye see it ain't the feelings that makes a feller a
gentleman in our business, it's knowing the human natur o' things;
how to be a statesman, when ye meets the like, how to be a
gentleman, and talk polite things, and sich like; how to be a jolly
fellow, an' put the tall sayings into the things of life; and when
ye gets among the lawyers, to know all about the pintes of the law,
and how to cut off the corners, so they'll think ye're bin a parish
judge. And then, when ye comes before the squire, just to talk
dignity to him-tell him where the law is what he don't seem to
comprehend. You've got to make a right good feller of the squire by
sticking a fee under his vest-pocket when he don't obsarve it. And
then, ye know, when ye make the squire a right good feller, you must
keep him to the point; and when there's any swarin' to be done, he's
just as easily satisfied as the law. It's all business, you see; and
thar's just the same kind a thing in it; because profit rules
principle, and puts a right smart chance o' business into their
hands without troubling their consciences.
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