'Ay, ay; I know you'd tap a hundred, Ann—I know you would; two hundred, perhaps. But I can't promise. This is a old cask, and the wood's rotted away about the tap-hole. The husbird of a feller Sam Lawson—that ever I should call'n such now he's dead and gone, pore old heart!—took me in completely upon the feat of buying this cask. "Reub," says he—'a always used to call me plain Reub, pore old heart!—"Reub," he said, says he, "that there cask, Reub, is as good as new; yes, good as new. 'Tis a wine-hogshead; the best port-wine in the commonwealth have been in that there cask; and you shall have en for ten shillens, Reub,"—'a said, says he—"he's worth twenty, ay, five-and-twenty, if he's worth one; and an iron hoop or two put round en among the wood ones will make en worth thirty shillens of any man's money, if—"'
