If you will invite yourselves to
dinner, you must be content with what I put before you."
"It is not a smart speech, Dexter, that will give you free walk on the
high road; and something is to be said about this proceeding of yours,
which, you must allow, is clearly in the teeth of all the practices
prevailing among the people of the frontier. At the beginning, and
before any of us knew the value of this or that spot, you chose your
ground, and we chose ours. If you leave yours or we ours, then either of
us may take possession--not without. Is not this the custom?"
"I tell you what, Munro, I have not lived so long in the woods to listen
to wind-guns, and if such is the kind of argument you bring us, your
dumpy lawyer--what do you call him?--little Pippin, ought to have been
head of your party. He will do it all day long--I've heard him myself,
at the sessions, from mid-day till clean dark, and after all he said
nothing."
"If you mean to persuade yourself, George, that we shall do no more than
_talk_ for our lands and improvements, you are likely to suffer
something for your mistake.
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