{"id":"01KG8AKCM88YC2RNMQQDBH6JQA","cid":"bafkreierxax65gairzcmxfdy2oooxag7nmo44k53faarttmvfrqs7jr6gu","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":5360,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:47:57.722Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 3","source_file":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","start_line":5295,"text":"little too much so, in spying heresy.\"\r\n\r\n\"Well,\" after an astonished pause, \"for an unaccountable pair, you and\r\nthe herb-doctor ought to yoke together.\"\r\n\r\nSo saying, the bachelor was eying him rather sharply, when he with the\r\nbrass plate recalled him to the discussion by a hint, not unflattering,\r\nthat he (the man with the brass plate) was all anxiety to hear him\r\nfurther on the subject of servants.\r\n\r\n\"About that matter,\" exclaimed the impulsive bachelor, going off\r\nat the hint like a rocket, \"all thinking minds are, now-a-days,\r\ncoming to the conclusion--one derived from an immense hereditary\r\nexperience--see what Horace and others of the ancients say of\r\nservants--coming to the conclusion, I say, that boy or man, the\r\nhuman animal is, for most work-purposes, a losing animal. Can't be\r\ntrusted; less trustworthy than oxen; for conscientiousness a turn-spit\r\ndog excels him. Hence these thousand new inventions--carding machines,\r\nhorseshoe machines, tunnel-boring machines, reaping machines,\r\napple-paring machines, boot-blacking machines, sewing machines, shaving\r\nmachines, run-of-errand machines, dumb-waiter machines, and the\r\nLord-only-knows-what machines; all of which announce the era when that\r\nrefractory animal, the working or serving man, shall be a buried\r\nby-gone, a superseded fossil. Shortly prior to which glorious time, I\r\ndoubt not that a price will be put upon their peltries as upon the\r\nknavish 'possums,' especially the boys. Yes, sir (ringing his rifle down\r\non the deck), I rejoice to think that the day is at hand, when, prompted\r\nto it by law, I shall shoulder this gun and go out a boy-shooting.\"\r\n\r\n\"Oh, now! Lord, Lord, Lord!--But _our_ office, respected sir, conducted\r\nas I ventured to observe----\"\r\n\r\n\"No, sir,\" bristlingly settling his stubble chin in his coon-skins.\r\n\"Don't try to oil me; the herb-doctor tried that. My experience, carried\r\nnow through a course--worse than salivation--a course of five and thirty\r\nboys, proves to me that boyhood is a natural state of rascality.\"\r\n\r\n\"Save us, save us!\"\r\n\r\n\"Yes, sir, yes. My name is Pitch; I stick to what I say. I speak from\r\nfifteen years' experience; five and thirty boys; American, Irish,\r\nEnglish, German, African, Mulatto; not to speak of that China boy sent\r\nme by one who well knew my perplexities, from California; and that\r\nLascar boy from Bombay. Thug! I found him sucking the embryo life from\r\nmy spring eggs. All rascals, sir, every soul of them; Caucasian or\r\nMongol. Amazing the endless variety of rascality in human nature of the\r\njuvenile sort. I remember that, having discharged, one after another,\r\ntwenty-nine boys--each, too, for some wholly unforeseen species of\r\nviciousness peculiar to that one peculiar boy--I remember saying to\r\nmyself: Now, then, surely, I have got to the end of the list, wholly\r\nexhausted it; I have only now to get me a boy, any boy different from\r\nthose twenty-nine preceding boys, and he infallibly shall be that\r\nvirtuous boy I have so long been seeking. But, bless me! this thirtieth\r\nboy--by the way, having at the time long forsworn your intelligence\r\noffices, I had him sent to me from the Commissioners of Emigration, all\r\nthe way from New York, culled out carefully, in fine, at my particular\r\nrequest, from a standing army of eight hundred boys, the flowers of all\r\nnations, so they wrote me, temporarily in barracks on an East River\r\nisland--I say, this thirtieth boy was in person not ungraceful; his\r\ndeceased mother a lady's maid, or something of that sort; and in manner,\r\nwhy, in a plebeian way, a perfect Chesterfield; very intelligent,\r\ntoo--quick as a flash. But, such suavity! 'Please sir! please sir!'\r\nalways bowing and saying, 'Please sir.' In the strangest way, too,\r\ncombining a filial affection with a menial respect. Took such warm,\r\nsingular interest in my affairs. Wanted to be considered one of the\r\nfamily--sort of adopted son of mine, I suppose. Of a morning, when I\r","title":"Chunk 3"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJM4RS4GSX8JEXTB47AGF","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JMR8XVKPA0G8ADAPC4","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKR52WTQ0Q1R7VCMSYC","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG8AKCKYNCB9B6JGKP9S11A8","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"next"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:02.696Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:48:09.945Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}