who have been on the look-out for his tracks for the last half year?
Now, if these things an't _desarving_ of punishment, there's nobody fit
to be hung--there's nobody that ought to be whipped. Hickories oughtn't
to grow any longer, and the best thing the governor can do would be to
have all the jails burnt down from one eend of the country to the other.
The proof stands up agin Bunce, and there's no denying it; and it's no
use, no how, to let this fellow come among us, year after year, to play
the same old hand, take our money for his rascally goods, then go away
and laugh at us. And the question before us is jist what I have said,
and what shall we do with the critter? To show you that it's high time
to do something in the matter, look at this calico print, that looks, to
be sure, very well to the eye, except, as you see, here's a tree with
red leaves and yellow flowers--a most ridiculous notion, indeed, for who
ever seed a tree with sich colors here, in the very beginning of
summer?"

Here the pedler, for the moment, more solicitous for the credit of the
manufactures than for his own safety, ventured to suggest that the print
was a mere fancy, a matter of taste--in fact, a notion, and not
therefore to be judged by the standard which had been brought to decide
upon its merits. He did not venture, however, to say what, perhaps,
would have been the true horn of the difficulty, that the print was an
autumn or winter illustration, for that might have subjected him to
condign punishment for its unseasonableness. As it was, the defence set
up was to the full as unlucky as any other might have been.

"I'll tell you what, Master Bunce, it won't do to take natur in vain. If
you can show me a better painter than natur, from your pairts, I give
up; but until that time, I say that any man who thinks to give the woods
a different sort of face from what God give 'em, ought to be licked for