At length, the
various disputants for justice, finding it difficult, if not impossible,
severally, to command that attention which they conceived they merited,
resolved themselves into something like a committee of the whole, and
proceeded to the settlement of their controversy, and the pedler's fate,
in a manner more suited to the importance of the occasion. Having
procured that attention which was admitted to be the great object, more
by the strength of his lungs than his argument, one of the company, who
was dignified by the title of colonel, spoke out for the rest.
"I say, boys--'tisn't of any use, I reckon, for everybody to speak about
what everybody knows. One speaker's quite enough in this here matter
before us. Here's none of us that sha'n't something to say agin this
pedler, and the doings of the grand scoundrel in and about these parts,
for a matter going on now about three years. Why, everybody knows him,
big and little; and his reputation is so now, that the very boys take
his name to frighten away the crows with.
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