{"id":"01KG6YH92D6AFNTERJEQ7RN9S9","cid":"bafkreibzz7xgfut4efkhefnceuaaeyakmr5l3z56pi4z5qjmaixvfhayjy","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":857,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:55.409Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 5","source_file":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","start_line":794,"text":"afford to sport such a lustrous face and a lustrous coat at one and the\r\nsame time. As Nippers once observed, Turkey’s money went chiefly for\r\nred ink. One winter day, I presented Turkey with a highly\r\nrespectable-looking coat of my own—a padded gray coat, of a most\r\ncomfortable warmth, and which buttoned straight up from the knee to the\r\nneck. I thought Turkey would appreciate the favor, and abate his\r\nrashness and obstreperousness of afternoons. But no; I verily believe\r\nthat buttoning himself up in so downy and blanket-like a coat had a\r\npernicious effect upon him—upon the same principle that too much oats\r\nare bad for horses. In fact, precisely as a rash, restive horse is said\r\nto feel his oats, so Turkey felt his coat. It made him insolent. He was\r\na man whom prosperity harmed.\r\n\r\nThough, concerning the self-indulgent habits of Turkey, I had my own\r\nprivate surmises, yet, touching Nippers, I was well persuaded that,\r\nwhatever might be his faults in other respects, he was, at least, a\r\ntemperate young man. But, indeed, nature herself seemed to have been\r\nhis vintner, and, at his birth, charged him so thoroughly with an\r\nirritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were\r\nneedless. When I consider how, amid the stillness of my chambers,\r\nNippers would sometimes impatiently rise from his seat, and stooping\r\nover his table, spread his arms wide apart, seize the whole desk, and\r\nmove it, and jerk it, with a grim, grinding motion on the floor, as if\r\nthe table were a perverse voluntary agent, intent on thwarting and\r\nvexing him, I plainly perceive that, for Nippers, brandy-and-water were\r\naltogether superfluous.\r\n\r\nIt was fortunate for me that, owing to its peculiar\r\ncause—indigestion—the irritability and consequent nervousness of\r\nNippers were mainly observable in the morning, while in the afternoon\r\nhe was comparatively mild. So that, Turkey’s paroxysms only coming on\r\nabout twelve o’clock, I never had to do with their eccentricities at\r\none time. Their fits relieved each other, like guards. When Nippers’s\r\nwas on, Turkey’s was off; and _vice versa_. This was a good natural\r\narrangement, under the circumstances.\r\n\r\nGinger Nut, the third on my list, was a lad, some twelve years old.\r\nHis, father was a carman, ambitious of seeing his son on the bench\r\ninstead of a cart, before he died. So he sent him to my office, as\r\nstudent at law, errand-boy, cleaner and sweeper, at the rate of one\r\ndollar a week. He had a little desk to himself, but he did not use it\r\nmuch. Upon inspection, the drawer exhibited a great array of the shells\r\nof various sorts of nuts. Indeed, to this quick-witted youth, the whole\r\nnoble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. Not the least\r\namong the employments of Ginger Nut, as well as one which he discharged\r\nwith the most alacrity, was his duty as cake and apple purveyor for\r\nTurkey and Nippers. Copying law-papers being proverbially a dry, husky\r\nsort of business, my two scriveners were fain to moisten their mouths\r\nvery often with Spitzenbergs, to be had at the numerous stalls nigh the\r\nCustom House and Post Office. Also, they sent Ginger Nut very\r\nfrequently for that peculiar cake—small, flat, round, and very\r\nspicy—after which he had been named by them. Of a cold morning, when\r\nbusiness was but dull, Turkey would gobble up scores of these cakes, as\r\nif they were mere wafers—indeed, they sell them at the rate of six or\r\neight for a penny—the scrape of his pen blending with the crunching of\r\nthe crisp particles in his mouth. Of all the fiery afternoon blunders\r\nand flurried rashnesses of Turkey, was his once moistening a\r\nginger-cake between his lips, and clapping it on to a mortgage, for a\r\nseal. I came within an ace of dismissing him then. But he mollified me\r\nby making an oriental bow, and saying—\r\n\r\n“With submission, sir, it was generous of me to find you in stationery\r\non my own account.”\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 5"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YGB7ZQ9TDECCV6B9DR6PT","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDDF6PTWG4P7JTS5THSTD","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92DEQBY7BCXA5M9CJ5T","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YH92DMAHTHTX7PW800NM8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.173Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:58:02.173Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}