HINDRANCES AND HELPS. 261 



ing. It is a part of the curse, I think, entailed upon 

 mankind, at the expulsion from Eden, that they 

 should sweat at a bargain. When a Frenchwoman 

 with her hand full of gloves, behind her dainty coun- 

 ter, asks the double of what her goods are worth, 

 you are noway surprised. You accept the enormity, 

 as a symptom of the depravity of her race, which is 

 balanced by the suavity of her manner. 



But when a hard-faced, upright, sabbath-keeping 

 New-England bank-officer or select-man, asks you 

 the double, or offers you the half, of what a thing is 

 really worth, there is a revulsion of feeling, which no 

 charm in his manner can drive away. Unlike the 

 case of the French shop-woman, I feel like passing 

 him on the other side of the street. 



And yet all this is to be met (and conquered, I 

 suppose) by whoever has butter, or eggs, or hay, or 

 fat-cattle to sell. I ventured once to express my 

 surprise to a shrewd foreman who had charge of this 

 business for I manage it by proxy as much as I can 

 that a staid gentleman with his ten thousand a 

 year of income, should have insisted upon a deduc- 

 tion of two cents a bushel in the price of his pota- 

 toes, in view of a quart of small ones, that had insin- 

 uated themselves in the interstices : I think I hear 

 his horse-laugh now, as he replied " Why, sir, it's 

 the way he grew rich." 



