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'You air a tongue-y person, Gen'ral. For you talk too much, and that's fact, said Scadder. 'You speak a-larming well in public, but you didn't ought to go ahead so fast in private. Now! 'If I can realise your meaning, ride me on a rail! returned the General, after pausing for consideration.
Each long black hair upon his head hung down as straight as any plummet line; but rumpled tufts were on the arches of his eyes, as if the crow whose foot was deeply printed in the corners had pecked and torn them in a savage recognition of his kindred nature as a bird of prey. Such was the man whom they now approached, and whom the General saluted by the name of Scadder.
Indeed, the office had little else in it, but some geological and botanical specimens, one or two rusty ledgers, a homely desk, and a stool. 'Heyday! what's that? 'That's Eden, said Scadder, picking his teeth with a sort of young bayonet that flew out of his knife when he touched a spring. 'Why, I had no idea it was a city. 'Hadn't you? Oh, it's a city. A flourishing city, too!
Mr Scadder said nothing, but he set his back against the plan, and thrust his toothpick into the desk some twenty times; looking at Mark all the while as if he were stabbing him in effigy. 'You haven't said whose work it is, Martin ventured to observe at length, in a tone of mild propitiation. 'Well, never mind whose work it is, or isn't, said the agent sulkily. 'No matter how it did eventuate.
'There ain't a single one, said Scadder. 'Mark, whispered Martin, pulling him by the sleeve, 'do you hear that? But whose work is all this before us, then? he asked aloud. 'The soil being very fruitful, public buildings grows spontaneous, perhaps, said Mark. He was on the agent's dark side as he said it; but Scadder instantly changed his place, and brought his active eye to bear upon him.
Martin thanked him, and took leave of Mr Scadder; who had resumed his post in the rocking-chair, immediately on the General's rising from it, and was once more swinging away as if he had never been disturbed.
'Is the Eden Land Corporation, with Mr Scadder at its head, and all the misery it has worked, at its door, an Institution of America? A part of any form of government that ever was known or heard of?
But the strangest exposition of this ruling passion was in the other the pestilence-stricken, broken, miserable shadow of a man who derived so much entertainment from the circumstance that he seemed to forget his own ruin in thinking of it, and laughed outright when he said 'that Scadder was a smart man, and had draw'd a lot of British capital that way, as sure as sun-up.
'Feel of my hands, young man, he said. 'What for? asked Mark, declining. 'Air they dirty, or air they clean, sir? said Scadder, holding them out. In a physical point of view they were decidedly dirty. But it being obvious that Mr Scadder offered them for examination in a figurative sense, as emblems of his moral character, Martin hastened to pronounce them pure as the driven snow.
But here, at a most opportune and happy time, the General interposed, and called out to Scadder from the doorway to give his friends the particulars of that little lot of fifty acres with the house upon it; which, having belonged to the company formerly, had lately lapsed again into their hands. 'You air a deal too open-handed, Gen'ral, was the answer. 'It is a lot as should be rose in price.
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