When he recovered, and was dismissed, the
author and his brothers opened a communication with him, through the
medium of a popular gingerbread baker, of whom both parties were
customers, in order to tender a subsidy in name of smart-money. The sum
would excite ridicule were I to name it; but sure I am that the pockets
of the noted Green-Breeks never held as much money of his own. He
declined the remittance, saying that he would not sell his blood, but at
the same time reprobated the idea of being an informer, which, he said,
was "clam," i.e., base or mean. With much urgency, he accepted a pound of
snuff for the use of some old woman--aunt, grandmother, or the like--with
whom he lived. We did not become friends, for the bickers were more
agreeable to both parties than any more pacific amusement; but we
conducted them ever after under mutual assurances of the highest
consideration for each other.
Such was the hero whom Mr. Thomas Scott proposed to carry to Canada and
involve in adventures with the natives and colonists of that country.
Perhaps the youthful generosity of the lad will not seem so great in the
eyes of others as to those whom it was the means of screening from severe
rebuke and punishment.
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