A POOR TIME TO SQUEAL.

New Zealand Times, Volume LI, Issue 8965, 16 April 1890, Page 2

A POOR TIME TO SQUEAL.

Representative William Engle, of Bangor, is an extensive lumber operator, says the Lewiston (Me.) Journal, and one fall, when up in a clearing, he ran across a man who had a barnful of hay to sell. It looked nice on the outside, and Engle struck a bargain whereby the man was to press it and then deliver to Engle’s teamster for 17 dollars per ton. Later in the season he went into the camp, and there he found a lot of pressed wiregrass, which, he said, was not fit for a horse to sleep on. * What’s this?’ he asked of the foreman. ‘ Why, that’s some hay you bought,’ ‘I bought?’ * Yes ; that’s some Davis toted in.’ ‘ Well,’ said Engle, ‘ I always thought 1 was a fool, but I never was fool enough to buy that stuff for hay.’ But he had bought it. The interior of that haymow was a big fraud, and when the seller struck Engle for a settlement he was told he was a cheat, and he couldn’t get a cent. But there came a time when some settlement must be made, and after much discussion it was agreed the whole matter should be lelt to one W, G. Davis, an honest backwoodsman, who had toted the material in, Euglo was delighted, for this man Davis had worked for him for years, and William was quite sure a good big slice would be knocked from the bill, which amounted to several hundred dollars. They found Davis out in the hovel, and, after opening up to him the proposition, all took shingles, and began to whittle, while Engle told bis story in the true legislative style. The seller couldn’t say much ; ho thought the .hay averaged well, and he would have opened the mow if he had been asked to do bo.; and, on the whole, made bad work of a poor case. ThenDavia, the juryman, whittled awhile, after which he cocked his eye toward the lumber king, and ashed—‘Bill, you accepted the hay?’ 1 W-e l-l, y e-s, my man did,’ ‘ And you have fed it out ?’ ‘Yes, the man did. He didn’t have any other feed.’ Davis whittled awhile, and then said—- ‘ You bought the hay, Bill, accepted it, and all winter you have been feeding it out, and betwixt you and me, William, I think it’s a darned'poor time to squeal.’ Eng's says bo saw the point, and he paid.