Trading Part 54

"Military rule," said Watson. "Your Governor has to consult this one and 'tother one, and go by the Legislature too, when all's done; the commander in chief asks leave of n.o.body."

"Well, Elisha Peters, what's _your_ ambition?" called out Norton.

"I'd like a little money,--enough, you know, not too much; and to go travelling all over the world on foot."

"On foot!" said Norton. "What would you get out of that?"

"I should see everything. Not part, you know, as everybody does; I should see everything."

"What would you do, Elisha, when you had got to the end of everything?--seen it all?"

"Don't believe I could. The world's big enough to last one man."

"Don't know but what it is," said Norton. "Will you write a book?"

"Guess not. Take too much time."

"Then the travelling would do n.o.body good but you?" said David.

"Who else should it?" replied Elisha.

"The _book_ would do n.o.body any good, if he were to write it,"

suggested Judy.

"Polite"--said Elisha.

"Selfish"--retorted Judy.

"Everybody is selfish," returned the young cynic.

"'Tain't true," said Norton; "but I haven't time to argue just now.

I've got work enough to do as a judge. Are we most through? I declare, here's half a dozen more to speak. Speak quick, please; and don't say so many odd things. The judge's work isn't going to be a trifle, in this court. d.i.c.k Morton, go ahead."

"I'd like to be able to do just what I have a mind to," said d.i.c.k.

"Bravo! only that's what we're all after. Come a little nearer the point, d.i.c.k; what'll you do with your time?"

"I'd be a hunter. I'd have first-rate rifles, you know, and pistols, and all that; and people to help; and I'd just go hunting. I'd kill buffaloes in the West till I had enough of that, and take a turn at a bear or so; then I'd go to Africa and have a royal time with the rhinoceros and lions, and maybe crocodiles. I'd spend a good while in Africa. Elephants, too. Then I'd cross over to India and hunt tigers.

I'd chase ostriches too."

"Not in India," said David.

"I didn't say, in India; but where they are. Deer of course, everywhere; and chamois, and all that."

"Birds?" suggested Norton.

"O yes, by the way, you know. I'd live upon ducks and snipe and wild turkey."

"When you weren't eating venison and buffalo hump," said David.

"Well--I'd have variety enough," said d.i.c.k. "I tell you! a hunter's supper is jolly."

"All alone?" said Esther.

"Another specimen of selfishness," said Judy. "They're all alike as two pears--only some of 'em are green, and the others a different colour."

"That's _your_ business," said Norton summing up; "now what's the good of it, d.i.c.k?"

"Fun. What's the good of anything?"

"To be sure," said the Judge. "Julie Simpson?"

But Julie wriggled and simpered, and could not be got to express herself otherwise. The sayings of several next corning were only echoes of some one or other of those who had spoken. Norton grew impatient.

"That'll do," he said; "now for the Recorder. It's time the Judge finished up. The best part of the play comes after."

"What's that?" said somebody; "what comes after? I thought this was the whole."

"You wouldn't catch me playing 'Capital and Interest' very often, if it was," said Norton. "No; the best business man, or the one who has the best business, is to appoint forfeits to all the rest; and if he knows how to do it, I tell you! that's fun."

"But how are we to decide who has the best business?"

"Can't! The Judge does that. Go ahead, David. What's _your_ business?"

"I wish it was peddling old shoes!" said Judy.

"Why?" several asked.

"It won't be anything as respectable. We've taken to turning old coats at our house."

"Go ahead, Davy!" cried Norton.

But David was deliberate about it. He finished his writing, and looked up.

"I think my capital is _myself_," he said with a smile. "I mean to make the most of _myself_, in every way I can think of; as well as of my money, and whatever else I have got."

"Don't sound so bad," said Elisha looking at Judy.

"Well Davy," said Norton; "what are you going to do with yourself, after you have made the most you can of it?"

"I am the servant of the King Messiah," said David with a smile again; "myself and all I have belong to him, and I want to make the most of them for Jesus and his work and his Kingdom. They are the talents He has given me to work with. And when the King comes to take account of me, I want to be able to say, 'Lord, thy pound hath gained five pounds.'"

The little people were silent. David spoke so simply and in so business-like fashion, there was no game to be made of his words; and nothing was said, till Norton remarked he did not know what he was going to do; he could not remember one half that had been said for him to pa.s.s judgment upon.

"I've got it all here," said David. "Take your seat, and begin; I'll read you two, and you choose the best in your judgment of those; then take another and compare with that, and so on."

"Well," said Norton. "Get along, David. It s a pesky business, this being judge, I can tell you."

"Silence in the court!" said David. "Esther Francis; capital, the most beautiful diamonds in New York; interest, she outshines everybody."