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While Wilford Ducker was unfastening the china buttons on his waist, preparatory to a season of rest and retirement, that he might the better ponder upon the sins of disobedience and evil associations, Patsey Watson was opening and shutting his new knife proudly. "It was easy done," he was saying to himself. "I'm kinder sorry I jewed him down now. Might as well ha' let him have the week.
He didn't even know the name of some of the parts, he confessed to himself. He hated to leave the place unguarded while he made his long tour of the fence and the range within. He did not trust the brother of Tomaso, who had been too easily jewed down in his price, Johnny thought. He believed old Sudden was right in having nothing to do with Mexicans, in forbidding them free access to his domain.
"And so," continued the other, "I jewed him down, and what do you suppose? Well, sir, from twenty-five thousand I brought him right down to, say, eight thousand. I could see that he had some scheme that he wants to go into right away, and that he wants ready money, right on the nail, you know, to carry it through. Ah, you bet, I was clever enough to see that.
An' after sittin' there last night, an' comin' home and tellin' my wife how folks was concerned about us, an' our rejoicin' together in the hope that some day our children could hev the chances we're shut out of now, who should come along this mornin' but one of those same holy people, and Jewed me down on pay that the Lord knows is hard enough to live on."
It rejoiced in such flowery appellatives as the Sea of Splendor, the Moon of Milk; and, of course, those who had been scarcely better than jewed out of it were determined to obtain it again at all hazards; they were never famous for scrupulosity.
"Oh, how I hate that word the way it's used, I mean. Of course, the real charity means love. Love, indeed! I suppose it was LOVE that made John Daly give one hundred dollars to the Pension Fund Fair after he'd jewed it out of those poor girls behind his counters! And Mrs. Morse went around everywhere telling how kind dear Mr. Daly was to give so much to charity!
He invariably left a neighborhood the loser by his visit, and the close of each season found him inconsolable for his "losses." But the next year he was sure to come back, risen, like the Phoenix, from his own ashes, and ready to be ruined again in the same way. He could never resist the pleading look of a pretty woman, and if she "jewed" him twenty per cent.
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