"
"To America--well, well," said Henchard, in a tone of disappointment, so
strong as to make itself felt like a damp atmosphere. "And yet I could
have sworn you were the man!"
The Scotchman murmured another negative, and there was a silence, till
Henchard resumed: "Then I am truly and sincerely obliged to you for the
few words you wrote on that paper."
"It was nothing, sir."
"Well, it has a great importance for me just now. This row about my
grown wheat, which I declare to Heaven I didn't know to be bad till the
people came complaining, has put me to my wits' end. I've some hundreds
of quarters of it on hand; and if your renovating process will make it
wholesome, why, you can see what a quag 'twould get me out of. I saw
in a moment there might be truth in it. But I should like to have it
proved; and of course you don't care to tell the steps of the process
sufficiently for me to do that, without my paying ye well for't first."
The young man reflected a moment or two. "I don't know that I have any
objection," he said. "I'm going to another country, and curing bad
corn is not the line I'll take up there. Yes, I'll tell ye the whole of
it--you'll make more out of it heere than I will in a foreign country.
Just look heere a minute, sir. I can show ye by a sample in my
carpet-bag.
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