The Attache; or, Sam Slick in England, vol 2 | Page 6

look as if you liked the flavour of that ere nut you are crackin' of. Whose dead? and what is to pay now?"
I read the letter and the memorial, and then explained from my own knowledge how numerous and how valuable were the services of my deceased friend, and expressed my regret at not being able to serve the memorialist.
"Poor woman!" said Mr. Hopewell, "I pity her. A colonist has no chance for these things; they have no patron. In this country merit will always obtain a patron--in the provinces never. The English are a noble-minded, generous people, and whoever here deserves encouragement or reward, is certain to obtain either or both: but it must be a brilliant man, indeed, whose light can be perceived across the Atlantic."
"I entertain, Sir," I said, "a very strong prejudice against relying on patrons. Dr. Johnson, after a long and fruitless attendance on Lord Chesterfield, says: 'Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time I have been pushing on my work, through difficulties, of which it is useless to complain, and have brought it at last to the verge of publication, without one act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I never bad a patron before."
"Ah!" said Mr. Hopewell, "a man who feels that he is wrong, is always angry with somebody else. Dr. Johnson, is not so much to be admired for the independence that dictated that letter, as condemned for the meanness and servility of seven years of voluntary degradation. It is no wonder he spoke with bitterness; for, while he censured his Lordship, he must have despised himself. There is a great difference between a literary and a political patron. The former is not needed, and a man does better without one; the latter is essential. A good book, like good wine, needs no bush; but to get an office, you want merits or patrons;--merits so great, that they cannot be passed over, or friends so powerful, they cannot be refused."
"Oh! you can't do nothin', Squire," said Mr. Sick, "send it back to Old Marm; tell her you have the misfortin to be a colonist; that if her son would like to be a constable, or a Hogreave, or a thistle-viewer, or sunthin' or another of that kind, you are her man: but she has got the wrong cow by the tail this time. I never hear of a patron, I don't think of a frolic I once had with a cow's tail; and, by hanging on to it like a snappin' turtle, I jist saved my life, that's a fact.
"Tell you what it is, Squire, take a fool's advice, for once. Here you are; I have made you considerable well-known, that's a fact; and will introduce you to court, to king and queen, or any body you please. For our legation, though they can't dance, p'raps, as well as the French one can, could set all Europe a dancin' in wide awake airnest, if it chose. They darsent refuse us nothin', or we would fust embargo, and then go to war. Any one you want to know, I'll give you the ticket. Look round, select a good critter, and hold on to the tail, for dear life, and see if you hante a patron, worth havin'. You don't want none yourself, but you might want one some time or another, for them that's a comin' arter you.
"When I was a half grow'd lad, the bears came down from Nor-West one year in droves, as a body might say, and our woods near Slickville was jist full of 'em. It warn't safe to go a-wanderin' about there a-doin' of nothin', I tell you. Well, one arternoon, father sends me into the back pastur', to bring home the cows, 'And,' says he, 'keep a stirrin', Sam, go ahead right away, and be out of the bushes afore sun-set, on account of the bears, for that's about the varmints' supper-time.'
"Well, I looks to the sky, and I sees it was a considerable of a piece yet to daylight down, so I begins to pick strawberries as I goes along, and you never see any thing so thick as they were, and wherever the grass was long, they'd stand up like a little bush, and hang in clusters, most as big and twice as good, to my likin', as garden ones. Well, the sun, it appears to me, is like a hoss, when it comes near dark it mends its pace, and gets on like smoke, so afore I know'd where I was, twilight had come peepin' over the spruce tops.
"Off I sot, hot foot, into the