Yet this was
not the right principle: some work, real or apparent, must be done for the
money, and the veteran was told that he might weed the strawberry bed,
though, as matters then stood, it was clean enough for a strawberry bed
that never bore anything. The veteran was neatly dressed, as I have said:
his coat, which was good, was buttoned to the throat for reasons that
shall be sacred against curiosity, and he had on a perfectly clean paper
collar; he was a handsome young fellow, with regular features, and a
solicitously kept imperial and mustache; his hair, when he lifted his hat,
appeared elegantly oiled and brushed. I did not hope from this figure that
the work done would be worth the money paid, and, as nearly as I can
compute, the weeds he took from that bed cost me a cent apiece, to say
nothing of a cup of tea given him in grace at the end of his labors.
My acquaintance was, as the reader will be glad to learn, a native
American, though it is to be regretted, for the sake of facts which his
case went far to establish, that he was not a New-Englander by birth.
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