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"To the queen's taste, I should say," was the secretary's not too deferential reply. "Ford's out of the way, to be gone ten days or a fortnight, and Frisbie has gone back to dicker with MacMorrogh, and to survey the new route up Horse Creek. Ford doesn't know; I doubt if he will ever know until we spring the trap on him.
Thus equipped as an itinerant clock repairer, and having a few watches to "dicker" with, he started on foot for Jenkintown, a small place twelve miles from Philadelphia. He sauntered slowly along with his satchel over his shoulder, going into a farmhouse occasionally, and finally reached Jenkintown. Here he passed from house to house, enquiring if they had any clocks that needed repairing.
So did the old house and big barn and all the tumbledown buildin's stuck there in the beach-grass and sand. Afore they'd left they made a dicker. He wa'n't the principal in it. He was the private secretary and fust mate of Mr. Professor Ansel Hobart Dixland, the scientist perhaps Scudder'd heard of him? "Perhaps he had, but if so, Nate forgot it, though he didn't tell him that.
And it is all right, anyway. We must move on. You see, Time won't stop to argue with us, or dicker; and our settin' down, and coaxin' him to stop a minute, and whet his scythe, and give us a chance to get round the swath he cuts, won't ammount to nothin' only wastin' our breath. His scythe is one that don't need any grindstun, and his swath is one that must be cut. No!
But I think just as much of you as I did before you lost your propputy, and I d'no as the propputy Uncle Sam got hold of in the dicker is a goin' to do him much good, not for quite a spell anyway.
By this, the Fuegians have approached near enough for hailing, which, however, they have been doing all along, shouting in high-pitched voices, and frantically gesticulating. They cry, "Ho-say! ho-say!" in quick repetition, two of them standing up and waving skins of some sort above their heads. "Thet means to hold palaver, an' hev a dicker wi' 'em," says Seagriff.
Solomon exclaimed. "Makes 'em feel safer. Grab 'em when they kin. If overtook by a stouter force they're in shape fer a dicker. The chief stands up an' sings like a bird 'bout the moon an' the stars an' the brooks an' the rivers an' the wrongs o' the red man, but it wouldn't be wuth the song o' a barn swaller less he can show ye that the wimmen are all right.
A gentleman who had come twice before to dicker for me, without result, or indeed any approach to a result, came again. I was far from expecting ever to belong to him, for the price asked for me from the time I was first enslaved was exorbitant, and always provoked either anger or derision, yet my master stuck stubbornly to it twenty-two dollars. He wouldn't bate a cent.
"I'm just chucking a thousand dollars at you, throwing it away for the fun of it . . ." "I don't want it. And I don't want to be tied up ninety days or nine." "Have you made a dicker with any one?" queried Madden suspiciously. "Old Sothern has had you all to himself. . . . Did you tie up with him?" "No." "Then, can't you see, I'm the man you want to deal with?"
"Schuyler's a fool!" he retorted, angrily. "Any landed proprietor here can become a rebel general in exchange for his estate! A fine bargain! A thrifty dicker! Let Philip Schuyler enjoy his brief reign in Albany. What's the market value of the glory he exchanged for his broad acres? Can you appraise it, Sir John?"
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