As he began with the words, 'How do you like--?' Martin took him up and
said:
'The country, I presume?'
'Yes, sir,' said Elijah Pogram. A knot of passengers gathered round to
hear what followed; and Martin heard his friend say, as he whispered
to another friend, and rubbed his hands, 'Pogram will smash him into
sky-blue fits, I know!'
'Why,' said Martin, after a moment's hesitation, 'I have learned by
experience, that you take an unfair advantage of a stranger, when you
ask that question. You don't mean it to be answered, except in one way.
Now, I don't choose to answer it in that way, for I cannot honestly
answer it in that way. And therefore, I would rather not answer it at
all.'
But Mr Pogram was going to make a great speech in the next session
about foreign relations, and was going to write strong articles on the
subject; and as he greatly favoured the free and independent custom (a
very harmless and agreeable one) of procuring information of any sort
in any kind of confidence, and afterwards perverting it publicly in any
manner that happened to suit him, he had determined to get at Martin's
opinions somehow or other.
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