"
"Nay, I'll not break the note."
More reckoning and arguing--a long business this; each gives way a little,
they split the difference--and the deal is over.
"And a terrible heap to pay for a bit of leather," says the purchaser. And
the dealer answers:
"Nay, you've got it at a bargain. But don't forget me next time you're in
town."
Towards evening I meet the mannikin once more, driving home again after
his venture into the world. The cow has been left behind at the butcher's.
There are parcels and sacks in the cart, but the little man himself jogs
along behind, the leather seat of his breeches stretching to a triangle at
every step. And whether for thoughtlessness, or an overweight of thought
after all these doings and dealings, he wears a rolled-up strip of sole
leather like a ring about one arm.
So money has flowed into the town once more; a peasant has come in and
sold his cow, and spent the price of it again in goods. The event is
noticed everywhere at once: the town's three lawyers notice it, the three
little local papers notice it; money is circulating more freely of late.
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