the box, calling out, "Gently, soho!" to Spec and Shat, when they advanced beyond a walk, and held a talk with himself in this wise: "I do n't want to carry that old carcase agin. He gits in and praises up the Cap'n so as I can hear him, and then asks me if I won't lay the whip on the hosses. Says I, 'Mr. Mewker, them hosses has been druv.' Says he, 'Yes, James, but you can give 'em a good rubbin' down when you get to hum, and that will fetch 'em all right.' Now, I want to know if you take a man, and lay a whip onto him, and make him travel till he's sore, whether rubbin' down is a-goin' to make him all right? No, Sir. Then he calls me James. I don't want no man to call me James; my name 's Jim. There was old Midgely; he called me James; did n't he coax out of me all I'd saved up for more 'n twenty years, and then busted? There was Deacon Cotton; did n't he come in over the Captain with that pork? He called me James, too. And there was that psalm-singin' peddler that got Miss Augusty to lend him the colt; he called me James. Did he bring the colt back! No, Sir; at least not yit, and it's more 'n three years ago. When a man calls me James, I take my eye and places it onto him. I hearn him when he tells Miss Mewker not to give beggars nothin'. I hearn him. He sez they may be impostors! Well, 'spose they be? When a feller-creatur' gits so low as to beg, have n't they got low enough? Aint they ragged, dirty, despised? Do n't they run a chance of starvin', impostors or not, if every body drives 'em off! And what great is it if they do get a-head of you, for a crumb or a cent? When I see a feller-creatur in rags, beggin', I say human natur has got low enough; it 's in rags! it begs! it 's 'way down, and it don't make much difference if it 's actin' or not. Them aint impostors that will do much harm. Them aint impostors like old Midgely, and Deacon Cotton, and that psalm-singin' peddler that borrowed the colt; at least they do n't cut it so fat. But 'spose they do n't happin' to be impostors, arter all? Whar 's that account to be squared? I guess I 'd rayther be the beggar than the other man when that account is squared. I guess when that account is squared, it will kind a-look as if the impostor was n't the one that asked for the stale bread, but the one that would n't give it. Seems as if I 've heard 'em tell about a similar case somewhere."
