human
If you want to know how to act any time, Squire, never go to books, leave them to gals and school boys; but go right off and cipher it out of natur', that's a sure guide; it will never deceive you, you may depend. For instance, 'what's that to me,' is a phrase so common that it shows it's a natural one, when people have no particular interest in a thing. Well, when a feller gets so warm on either side as never to use that phrase at all, watch him, that's all! keep your eye on him, or he'll walk right into you afore you know where you be. If a man runs to me and says, 'Your fence is down,' 'Thank you,' says I, 'that's kind.' If he comes agin and says, 'I guess some stray cattle have broke into your short sarce garden,' I thank him agin; says I, 'Come now, this is neighbourly; but when he keeps etarnally tellin' me this thing of one sarvant, and that thing of another sarvant, hints that my friends ain't true, that my neighbours are inclined to take advantage of me, and that suspicious folks are seen about my place, I say to myself, what on airth makes this critter take such a wonderful interest in my affairs? I don't like to hear such tales; he's arter somethin' as sure as the world, if he warn't he'd say, 'What's that to me.' I never believe much what I hear said by a man's violent friend, or violent enemy. I want to hear what a disinterested man has to say. Now, as a disinterested man, I say if the members of the House of Assembly, instead of raisin' up ghosts and hobgoblins to frighten folks with, and to show what swordsmen they be, a-cuttin' and a-thrustin' at those phantoms that only exist in their own brains, would turn to, heart and hand, and develop the resources of this fine country, facilitate the means of transport, promote its internal improvement, and encourage its foreign trade, they would make it the richest and greatest, as it now is one of the happiest sections of all America. I hope I may be skinned if they wouldn't--they would I swan.