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"What will you bet?"

"The honor of my wife."

"You have no wife. Don't think you are going to come that game over me. I'm as much of a yankee as you are, born and reared in a yankee town."

"I'll come back to you within three months with the handsomest wife yankee land can produce, and whose life is as pure as a cotton ball before it is cursed by slave labor, for hang it Jim, since I went north I believe slave labor is accursed. Say, will you bet?"

"Bet? yes, I'll bet you that thousand dollars I've just won, and have it drawn up in writing. But a man of your character will never get a yankee girl of that stamp. They are too shrewd. You don't know 'em as I do. You judge 'em by the character of our southern women which may be pure enough for anything I know, but by thunder they'd all have to live old maids if they should be as particular as they are up north. I'd as soon live in a straight jacket as be cooped up with one of them all my days, and a man wants his liberty sometimes; you know that. That's the charm of southern life to which