wouldn’t shoot at a deer at ten rod: besides, you may remember, Aggy,
I only fired once.”

“Yes, massa Richard, I ‘member ‘em! Natty Bumppo fire t’oder gun. You
know, sir, all ‘e folks say Natty kill him.”

“The folks lie, you black devil!” exclaimed Richard in great heat. “I
have not shot even a gray squirrel these four years, to which that old
rascal has not laid claim, or some one else [or him. This is a damned
envious world that we live in—people are always for dividing the
credit at a thing, in order to bring down merit to their own level.
Now they have a story about the Patent,* that Hiram Doolittle helped
to plan the steeple to St. Paul’s; when Hiram knows that it is
entirely mine; a little taken front a print of his namesake in London,
I own; but essentially, as to all points of genius, my own.”

* The grants of land, made either by the crown or the state, were but
letters patent under the great seal, and the term “patent” is usually
applied to any district of extent thus conceded; though under the
crown’, manorial rights being often granted with the soil, in the
older counties the word “manor” is frequently used. There are many
manors in New York though all political and judicial rights have
ceased.

“I don't know where he come from,” said the black, losing every mark
of humor in an expression of admiration, “but eb’rybody say, he
wounerful handsome.”

“And well they may say so, Aggy,” cried Richard, leaving the buck and
walking up to the negro with the air of a man who has new interest