Лучшие романы Томаса Майна Рида / The Best of Thomas Mayne Reid

”

“Oh, Mr Stump! you are an incorrigible flatterer! Look around you! you will see many here more deserving of your compliments than I.”

“Wal, wal!” rejoined Zeb, casting a look of careless scrutiny towards the ladies, “I ain’t a goin’ to deny thet thur air gobs o’ putty critters hyur – dog-goned putty critters; but es they used to say in ole Loozyanney, thur air but one Lewaze Peintdexter.”

A burst of laughter – in which only a few feminine voices bore part – was the reply to Zeb’s gallant speech.

“I shall owe you two hundred dollars for this,” said the planter, addressing himself to Maurice, and pointing to the spotted mare. “I think that was the sum stipulated for by Mr Stump.”

“I was not a party to the stipulation,” replied the mustanger, with a significant but well-intentioned smile. “I cannot take your money. She is not for sale.”

“Oh, indeed!” said the planter, drawing back with an air of proud disappointment; while his brother planters, as well as the officers of the Fort, looked astonished at the refusal of such a munificent price.

Two hundred dollars for an untamed mustang, when the usual rate of price was from ten to twenty! The mustanger must be mad?

He gave them no time to descant upon his sanity.

“Mr Poindexter,” he continued, speaking in the same good-humoured strain, “you have given me such a generous price for my other captives – and before they were taken too – that I can afford to make a present – what we over in Ireland call a �luckpenny.

’ It is our custom there also, when a horse-trade takes place at the house, to give the douceur[138 - douceur – here: gift (French)], not to the purchaser himself, but to one of the fair members of his family. May I have your permission to introduce this Hibernian[139 - Hibernian – Irish] fashion into the settlements of Texas?”

“Certainly, by all means!” responded several voices, two or three of them unmistakably with an Irish accentuation.

“Oh, certainly, Mr Gerald!” replied the planter, his conservatism giving way to the popular will – “as you please about that.”

“Thanks, gentlemen – thanks!” said the mustanger, with a patronising look towards men who believed themselves to be his masters.